Originally Posted by
daftboy
But I don’t think that is a hugely realistic proposition – surely the whole point of variable pricing and revenue management is to match prices more closely with demand - cheap at the start and rising as the date of travel approaches. If you want the flexibility to book late the quid pro quo for that is that it is going to be more expensive, often vastly more. (But then as an economist and statistician you will know more about that than I ever would!).
That is only one method of selling airline seats invented by SouthWest Airlines that a number of other low quality of service and low quality of customer treatment airlines (since that is what they specialise in above all else) have chosen to adopt.
Easyjet pursue the SouhWest Airlines pricing model absolutely dogmatically and totally inflexibly without any thought to the possibility that if someone travels often but does not book far ahead there may be a way to adcommodate themn and still gain their business. Easyjet does not bother. It only comes up with ludicrous propositions like their Flex fare which is so expensive that you might as well not book at all and then book at the last minute on the day if you actually decide to go.
Other airlines accept that all customer types may be valuable to them. For instance Ryanair starts off cheap and then slowly puts prices up but then regularly has massive discount sales on those dates where bookings have fallen below the expected sales curve and these discount sales continue regularly until 2 weeks before departure. Only from 2 weeks before departure do Ryanair fares simply go up and up as Easyjet's always do. Thus were it not for the fact that I live near Gatwick and Ryanair goes from Stansted then I would be prepared to travel with them whilst of course making sure that I do not fall foul of their numerous hidden surcharges policies.
Living where I do with a major charter airport near by the policy of the charter airlines of cutting prices heavily on undersold flights a few days before departure suits me but I am frustrated by their 5kg hand luggage limit which they never used to enforce but now enforce viciously and frequently. I am also frustrated that they play games with making their hold baggage weight limit 20kg one month and 15kg the next or that they have allowed hold bag charges to rise as high as a ridiculous £22 per sector (£44 return) on Thomson to PMI this summer compared to only £6.50 per sector on the same route in the same month two years ago.
Other methods of travel like the car or even cheap day return train tickets to London from 30 miles out do not cost any more if I decide to go 10 minutes before I actually travel rather than 10 months before hand. I find your simple unquestioning acceptance of the Southwest Airlines method of selling airline seats to be extremely disappointing. For instance if people sign up to travel on 10 sectors on the same route in a season they should be able to secure the majority of the advance booking discount without having to book as far ahead to get it as the cautious organised schoolteacher making only one return trip per year.
The bottom line is people who accommodate the way I need to book get my business and the people who don't do not get my business. For this reason I have not travelled on an Easyjet flight for approximately five years and only on flight sector at all with them within the last 10 years. When Easyjet wanted to charge me £300 one way to make a booking on one day's notice from PMI due to a relative having a heart attack in October 2011 I was able to cut the cost to £100 one way by making a return journey via Zurich with Swiss Airlines with the return flight coming back to PMI at the end of the following April. Moral of the story is Easyjet may try charging £300 for booking one day ahead but they don't get my business by doing so.