findark

All prices o/w a/i:

PHL-LAX: $94
PHL-LAS: $80
SFO-ORD: $50
LAX-ORD: $47

etc. Looks like some of them are matched so e.g. $70 on SFO-ORD is currently runnable as a non-BE fare. Definition of "insane" varies as $35 was a price point for most of 2015 on LAX/CHI, but $99 r/t SFO/CHI is lower than I've seen in a long time.

rittenhousesq

For years my S.O. and I have done a trip to LAX during MLK weekend in January, but the fare difference between BE and regular economy is huge that weekend, as is being reported. $98 o/w PHL-LAX BE fare versus $178 for regular economy!

AAExPlat

WOW. That IS insanely cheap. One has to wonder how these fares could make ANY economic sense even without seat selection, bags etc....

nycityny

Yeah, it's not like United saves any money by making the flying experience less pleasant for the low fare passenger.

hondaman82

In case of oversold, will BE pax get pick to boost before Y pax? obviously it is not random like United always stated.

AAExPlat

I would expect UA to lose their pants if pax who buy these fares do not pay for bags or pay for seat selection. Two services that I would expect to cost UA very little to render given their IT setup and existing headcount at airports around the country.

findark

Inventory control, too - you need to find space in the lowest buckets. But in a broader sense, I think AA is learning from UA's mistakes and using these price points to soften the blow of BE. They get to go "look at how ridiculously cheaply we're able to offer you travel now that we have BE", people get complacent about BE existing, and then they can hike fares back to normal. This is sort of what I expected UA to do, and instead they are along for the ride.

Yes. IDB list is by inverse fare class, so non-elites on BE fares will be IDBed first. However, IDB is really, really, really rare so it's largely a moot point.

nycityny

BE passengers on United are not allowed to pay for a seat selection - it's not an option. And non-status passengers already have to pay to check a bag even at a normal economy fare. So this low fare only yields more revenue to United if the passenger brings a carry-on bag or doesn't make the flight at all. Otherwise it's just a pure loss for them, and it sends negative vibes to the passenger for the added restrictions. It just seems like a ridiculous concept to me that all 3 major airlines have now implemented.

lincolnjkc

I thing it's going a bit far to call it a "pure" loss -- that necessarily assumes that had the BE fare not been available the passenger would have (a) still flown UA, and (b) paid a higher fare.

In the case where the passenger was not predestined to fly UA (choice of carrier, flexibility of travel plans, etc.) and the flight was not already sold out the BE passenger is basically pure incremental revenue -- their 200# or so of skin and bones and handbag probably add negligible fuel burn and passenger handling costs relative to the even reduced revenue associated with their flab.

What I don't completely understand is why BE isn't capacity controlled based on historical traffic... e.g. if the historical data shows that a 11am AAA-BBB flight sells 96% of seats at "normal" fares making no more than 4% of the capacity available for ticketing at BE fares -- basically a "clearance sale" for inventory that will spoil rather than cannibalizing existing revenue.

WineCountryUA

UA has never stated this was random, the CoC has given a hint at the process for years and now (posted in IDB wiki) has provided more details. The lack of a seat assignment (for a non-elite or special needs customer) has always been a top target for IDB if oversold and then inverse fare class. That could put the BE customer at risk for one of those extremely rare IDBs.

gene2632

Shopping for some LAS-EWR fares yesterday for late March and EWR-LAS RT for late April to mid-May I found most flights that offered BE fares were the same cost as regular economy, in one case, a 6:45am departure from LAS the economy fare was $5 less than the BE fare. All flights are pretty empty right now and it really makes no sense.

Kacee

Though it wasn't at first, it is now capacity controlled since it is limited to the deep discount buckets (specific bucket is route dependent, but generally capped in the W/S/T range).

iahphx

My second (return) experience with BE was also interesting. I was again travelling with 2 other pax: so we were 2 1Ks, 1 no status. For the return, we checked in about 23 hours in advance and were assigned the second row of coach, in economy plus. So the flight was pretty much exactly what I normally get as a 1K, absent the possibility of an upgrade.

When I checked in, I was offered the opportunity to put my name on the willing-to-be-bumped list (I declined). I was surprised by this because the seat map looked empty. The last 3 rows of coach were completely empty, there were a few empty middle seats in regular economy, and about half of Economy + was empty.

The flight went out completely full, with lots of people taking Economy+ seats at the end of the boarding process.

Obviously, they assigned many BE pax to Economy +.

My experiences strongly suggest a few things: 1) UA will try to sit parties together; 2) elites taking advantage of online checkin are likely to get OK seats; 3) some flights have a lot of BE pax, and those pax will be seated in Economy+ if that's where the empty seats are. Interestingly, UA could have given us 3 seats together in regular economy when we checked in, but for some reason prioritized us to Economy+. I don't know what would have happened had we been all non-elite.

HkCaGu

There may be quite a few premiers buying BE like you. And I suspect if there are premiers who don't care about PQM/PQD anymore, that might change after January 1. So there may be a whole different landscape at the turn of the calendar year.

iahphx

Honestly, most of the BE pax on my flight looked like BE pax. They were younger, less-experienced, less well-dressed. Not quite a Spirit crowd, but not that far from it. They did not look like the typical biz/affluent crowd you usually see in the front of the cabin.

And I think this is why basic economy MIGHT work for the airlines. The people who have more money to spend generally won't buy these tickets. Of course, you'll get the oddball 1K like me who will when he thinks it's a much better deal, but these pax are few and far between.

BTW, on my outbound flight, when we WERE seated in the back of the aircraft, the fa come up to us before takeoff and said "You must be my VIPs." We were startled for a second, but said, "Well, if you mean we are 1Ks, yes we are." After mentioning how long she worked for the airline, and how much she appreciated us as loyal customers, she took our hot food order and made sure to save us what we wanted. Better service that I usually get in Economy+.