Originally Posted by
orbitmic
I personally think that’s a silly move. Competitors fares are changeable including basic fares except I believe for flights originating in the us, moreover, change ability is often an implicit opportunity for airlines to make more income as by default you oook to change the existing ticket even if difference in fare is huge (which it often is near date) and it would in fact be cheaper to just get taxes back and book from scratch on a competitor (which is always the case too).
i personally think af believe both that pax are just purely fare driven and that the change will change their behaviour and make them pay up for standard which strikes me as an internal contradiction.
Good point on being simpler to book on a competitor. For example, this week I had a flight back from Milan which had to be changed, and we paid to change for the next day. But if the ticket would have been unchangeable we would have booked a Ryanair ticket which would have been cheaper than even the AF change cost (even with the most expensive Ryanair fare bucket - which includes flexibility).
AF seems to not understand how things work behind the scenes for some, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to justify to our admin team booking AFKL flights when others are often much cheaper and offer easier connections/times. 🙈 Irrational loyalty for the elite benefits can only go up to a point. And if the differences with lowcost airlines become closer to 0 (even negative when traveling in Europe because of the lack of direct flights), it will only become harder.