6916243

I was looking for a flight out off MUC when I noticed EK set another trap to ripp off their premium passengers. Between 20.8 and 4.9 all first flex fares are blocked only flex plus is available on the outbound sector. Thats another 800 Eur for nothing and you won't even get better fare rules. Unless you purchase Flex plus both ways you are still stuck with Flex rules.
Why am I not surprised when I checked on a number of flights and they are mostly empty. EK thinks we are stupid!

Dave Noble

Where is the trap? that the only fares for sale are flex plus indicates nothing about a rip off, just that EK only wishes to sell F for that route at that time

eternaltransit

You can purchase different fare bases on the outbound and inbound parts of your journey, so I assume your gripe is with the married segment requirements of MUC-DXB-XXX.

This is very common practice across all carriers so I don't think you can single out EK for this - also it happens across all cabins.

Technically there is a difference between Flex and Flex Plus conditions (the refund/change restrictions) but I accept this is probably not applicable to you!

Also, the fact that Flex is zeroed out actually implies there is a lot of demand for one of the planes you are on!

If you need to fly on the schedule you need, then unfortunately that is the transparent fare you will need to pay. Such is the modern air travel market!

kuroko

Maybe also just a high C and Y demand and little F. So they will oversell C/Y and upgrade them to F (or C if you are a Y pax).

DYKWIA

Welcome to FT... After 4 years

6916243

We were booking a seat for an associate when we noticed Emirates is now doing the blocking game in business 29.9 - 16.10 too. All flex fares blocked and only flex plus is made available.
I told my guys to stop booking EK and look elsewhere until we know whats going on.
Maybe EK wants to explain?

kuroko

The fare logic from EK is not easy to (fully) understand.

Maybe (saver/flex) fares ex DXB are much more expensive to MUC than from MUC to DXB, that is why an availability MUC-DXB is "worse" on this date (because EK thinks that they can fill the plane with passenger flying to MUC). Maybe the load is already very good for those dates, maybe C and Y are already overbooked.
Maybe a fare MUC to BKK is more expensive in I class than a MUC to DXB, so the will close the booking class I for availabilities MUC-DXB. Or they know that they can sell out C with Flex Plus fares on those dates based on experience from last year/calculations.

There are for sure more components that have an influence regarding an availability.

There are always a lot of things that have an influence which fare you get.

As you can see it occurs only between some certain dates, where only J is available, exactly this should shown you that this is not a game - just a good revenue management (from the point of EK).

6916243

In My opinion EK is testing the ground how much they can rise before customers go somewhere else. Nothing else makes sense. Neither C is heavy booked during F flex blocking nore is C or F full during the C flex blocking period.

kuroko

Do you know the loads? Only because there is availability i.e. I class, doesn't mean Business is not full or vice versa.

Bau

It seems to me that most flights in the days you mentioned are rather full. May I ask how did you check availability?

BRITINJAPAN3

Gasp, "Airline tried to manage revenue " Feel free to change to an airline that does not do this, and then you can stay at home. I never see a complant that airlines offer seat at a discount as they have loads of empty seats !!

irishguy28

Have you been running several booking queries for flights on or around these dates?

If - as you say, though you have not provided any proof - the flights are not "busy" on these days, it could be that the website is noticing the flurry of searches for certain dates from your computer, and therefore increasing the prices to encourage you to make a booking before the price goes up any further.

(I am suggesting this only as a rather-unlikely scenario. I do not know that EK monitors such search requests and therefore tweaks availability in response).

A far more likely scenario is that, having chosen dates in the European summer holidays and/or midterm breaks, the lower booking classes are already sold out on your dates. Once a certain number of seats have been sold on any service at a certain fare level, the airline (and all airlines do this) will close off the lower fare buckets, meaning that subsequent bookers will have to choose from higher fare buckets.

Or choose to travel with another airline, if you so wish. You are not compelled to travel with EK.

eternaltransit

I don't think the word testing is the correct one - they already have historical booking patterns for the sectors in question as well as the economic profile of their customers and live data from searches to indicate demand that might be falling through the gaps in the projections.

What they are doing is simply adjusting pricing to match the demand they are confident of selling at various price points at various times to departure.

The lack of availability of Flex fares implies that their confidence is matched by reality. Revenue management is as much art as science.

FD1971

You have to understand that carriers like EK are subject to learning from the best in the industry, hence they hire experts from the best in the industry, which brings us to Lufthansa and good, old Anti.

Hence it is not surpising to see EK copy approaches, which made LH the admired champion of the industry when it comes to squeezing out the market as much as possible.

And quite frankly, EK has to up the ante when it comes to RASM asap....

Whether such approaches are unethical or not is certainly worth another discussion....@:-)