Originally Posted by
matasuki
I feel like if this were the case, they'd be advertising the crap out of the flash sale on their website. However, prices are still the standard 4k +- round trip.
as i'm sure you know already, airlines don't want to advertise significant savings as it causes price deflation and a cheapening of a brand in the eyes of leisure travellers.
it means people won't want to spend more in future if they know they can get it cheap in a well known sale. in retail this is common and happens with a number of shops which have frequent sales - when they don't have sales, people stop buying and just wait for the sale.
seeiing as they operate at 60% carrying capacity vs industry 80% average on the route, it doesn't seem implausible that they would want to push this number up, subtly.
VS and BA have similar sales typically out of continental europe.
however, the current business class sale for 1,000 from LHR to east coast US/Canada is actually a big saving compared to the normal prices. it's a reduction by 40-50%, and it actually looks like a competitive move against BA because it is out of LHR.