Originally Posted by
williwaw
I have not been able to get data to look at this, but I've assumed that pre-Saver the marketplace might look like this for the same route on different airlines:
United: BE $130, Economy $160
Delta: BE: $127: Economy $154
Alaska: $140 Economy
Now this is a made up ideal scenario, so I expect objections there. But suspend disbelief for a moment... Alaska was in a situation where they had to make choice to advertise low enough to show up in OTA searches, but they were not the same product or pricing. So essentially leaving money on the table or getting passed over. I assume this because if the market is moderately well functioning the Economy (non-basic) should now balance out across carriers and routes with some exceptions where one carrier dominates. So for me the question is did the fares go up but go up to match a similar level of other non-basic fares?
As noted here, what complicates this is the market segmentation. There LCC or Ultra-LCC customers going anywhere, the business fares that exclude basic, and the loyalty types that are maybe caught in between. I assume or those with business travel, the big impact would result in being forced onto other carriers because AS is no longer competitive at economy. Haven't heard any concerns there yet. (And my personal experience has been AS is pretty close.)
Disclaimer: I am not an expert, I am not an airline revenue manager, I have enough skills to get on the internet. This post could be full of hooey.
This is what they're claiming to be doing, and if they were doing it I would be ok with that. However, the reality has been fairly different - a lot of us know exactly what each fare class is supposed to cost on a certain city pair (barring any unusual sales, etc). For example, I know that R-fare SFO-RDU roundtrips are "supposed" to be $190. If AS were to offer a lower fare on X to match the majors (even if Main were now slightly/incrementally higher), I would think very few would fault them. Instead, they're now showing $190 as the X fare (so no prices are lower and they're not, in fact, lowering to match the majors), while I'd now have to pay $220 for the same R fare.
I wouldn't fault AS at all for pricing your above example as 133 for X and 145 for Main - the problem is that they've instead gone out and made 140 X and now ask 170 for Main, which to me indicates it was never about matching a fare offered by any other carrier.