Because an infinitely variable range of fares allows the airlines to exercise their millions of dollars' worth of hardware and hundreds' of years experience in yield management to assure that every plane is filled with people who have paid as much as they are each willing to pay to be on that flight.

It works like a charm. Just ask Southw ... what? What's that? You mean the most consistently profitable airline in history only has four or five fare buckets on each flight? Why ... that can't be!

The real answer to your question lies in history. Back in the halcyon days of commercial air travel, it made sense to hold seats at ever-increasing fares for short-notice travelers, just one or two of which could offset losses from 20 or 30 advance-purchase loss-leader tickets.

Well, these days the loss-leader tickets are selling just fine, thanks, but the market has curiously dried up for $2,300 last-minute round-trip coach fares. Wonder why?

The good side to flying an outfit like Southwest - with a much flatter fare structure - is that you'll never pay more than a very reasonable fare to get from Point A to Point B. The bad side is that you may not be able to get there at all.

I can call up United or American right now and get a seat to Los Angeles for Thursday afternoon, one of the busiest travel days of the year. It'll cost an arm and a leg, but I can get it. But just try booking a BWI-LAX ticket on Southwest for that time frame right now!

Personally, I think it's hilariously ironic that the one response the majors have taken to the Southwest incursion on their markets is to make their fare structures more complicated. Yes! As if the problem with their revenue model somehow lay in not having enough differentiation between fare buckets. (Or perhaps not enough letters in the alphabet!) (double )

The short answer to your question is that the game is so complicated because airline executives are doing what they've always been best at -- fighting the last war. One of these days, they'll ken to the wonders of a simpler fare structure, and oh, how the average traveler will rejoice!

Mook

(Edited to add: Y'know something? I just went to southwest.com, and it turns out that I can get from BWI-LAX this Thursday afternoon. And back on Sunday afternoon, another of the busiest travel days of the year. All for the oh-so-exorbitant sum of $498, round-trip.

That does it. I'm not going to attempt even backhanded compliments of the majors' fare structure any more.)

[This message has been edited by Mook (edited 07-01-2003).]