FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - A3 begins charging for advance seat reservations - limited discount for A3*G
Old Feb 21, 2018, 12:03 pm
  #152  
johnirvine
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Cyprus
Programs: THY Elite Plus, Aegean Gold, LH FTL. Former BA Gold, Air France Platinum, Czech Gold, United PE.
Posts: 643
Originally Posted by Xandrios
Keep in mind that being the cheapest is not always the appropriate tactic.

There are routes (and I can imagine LCA is one of them) where pax strongly prefer Aegean over LH. As such the majority of seats on the Aegean flight may have already been booked, while the LH flights may be less busy. In such case they can easily afford (and would be stupid not to) price themselves over LH.

As long as they can fill the flights while using higher fares, they are doing exactly the right thing. Perhaps not what we as pax would like, but for Aegean the company its the way to make money.
I agree in principle with your market-oriented logic. However, there has clearly been a change in A3 pricing structures over recent months. This began with a widening of the gap between GoLight and Flex fares and has evolved into other changes like seat charges. I normally book flights at least 8 months in advance, when there are very few bookings indeed, and over the last two to three years found that A3 offered better fares around 60% of the time. However, for the last 10 bookings that I made from LCA, LH Group offered far more competitive fares. Aegean are currently being hammered by the LCCs from LCA and will hardly compete against LH Group by upping their prices at the same time as rebranding their flights as Olympic. I suspect that some green-behind-the-ears management recruits may be behind Aegean's recent decisions.
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