superangrypenguin

Government workers in Canada do not book their own tickets and policy is to fly lowest fare. At least those in the CS pay group which I work with.

Execs are now usually following same policy as the rest of everyone else. (worked in big pharm and bit IT). Same dealio.

It's easy to book last minute to get to flex, but usually the policy is lowest fare econ, not just "buy econ".

Since LMUs allegedly are priced independent on base fare class, why would I book full Y than lowest Flex if the LMU is the same and I'm paying OOP for the LMU?

Impulse buy, yes. I agree and had not considered this. However to your last point, id just buy up to the fare class I want instead and not bother with a LMU

winnipegrev

A close friend working in government (and not high level) is booked into Flex by default. It was Tango Plus before that. But you're right, they don't buy their own tickets.

lostinthewash

AC868 (YYZ-LHR) went out this morning with J full. T-72 there were only 2 J seats open if you can trust the seat map. Paid biz (don't know the fare codes) regularly range from $2,000 to $10,000 one way on this route .. no idea who buys in the $10,000 fare bucket, but maybe someone does. My tickets are lowest biz, but I would never cough up $20k return for this route.

I accidentally bought a LMU on the return several weeks ago. Saw the price, thought "hey, that's an awesome deal" and bought it. In a rookie moment, I didn't look at the currency until I got my bank notification of the transaction. That "awesome deal" was in GBP not CAD ... Sometimes stupid is accidental.

pitz

Yet the pro-active disclosure sections on the various government websites are complete with examples of fares that look awfully like last-minute Latitude bookings. "Policy" might be to fly lowest fare, but if a booking is made at the last minute, the lowest-fare, conveniently, is usually a full-Y.

A small business owner who needs last-minute travel might forego it or might take the train/bus/drive. The civil servants fly. Even Ottawa-Montreal which is about as bizarre as it gets.

Then you'd have to deal with someone in ticketing, etc. at the airport. Far less impulsive, and far more deliberate than the person who taps the kiosk, whips out their card, and a minute later, has themselves a J boarding pass. On a busy day at the airport, even getting to see someone with ticketing capability can be a hassle.

pitz

Civil servants/NGO execs. Rock stars. Aristocrats. Hockey players. On one of my most recent times sitting in J, my seat mate was a well-known lawyer worth $100M+ whose personal plane went mechanical that night at YYZ.

superangrypenguin

Cite.

I think you are confusing say, MPs with say regular government employees. I'm pretty sure (but could be wrong) that there are no public disclosures of government employees' travel. Plus, even on the same day, say out of YOW to say YYZ, there are rarely instances where there's only a full Y ticket left.

Plus, policy or not, this is the LMU thread. What does booking full Y have anything to do with LMU's? Government employees aren't walking around with extra $ to throw at a LMU and most certainly (the majority) do not fly enough to buy a latitude FP. (and this would be not broken down AFAIK in any public disclosure at cost / flight). Plus, government employees don't buy their own tickets, and most don't even know that waiting last minute would drive up the costs. They'd have to know EF/KVS, know the flight, know what fare buckets are, so on and so forth. Winnipegrev even chimed in and said Flex for government employees for his data point.

So even if a government employee who is on a full Y fare (which I whole heartedly would bet you a drink that they aren't) what does it matter for LMU's? They don't get auto upgraded to J as they are not on a FP as per above.

No they don't. They call in and do it >24 hours out.

pitz

http://www.fin.gc.ca/expenses-frais/...2011&empType=3

There are plenty of public disclosures' of government employee travel. See above.


Full Y gets an upgrade most of the time, either with a trivial payment of an up-fare, or with minor expenditure of eUpgrades if one has AC status.

The argument was, certain public servants and executives game the system to generate bookings on high fares, which are then subsequently upgraded at little or no cost. Thus circumventing Y-only travel policies.

When conference attendance is known for months in advance, there's really no excuse to wait until the last minute to book a ticket. Yet this is what seems to happen in many instances.

If you book the day of, or the day before, there is typically no Flex. Its full-Y. Of course the economy has recently decelerated, so last-minute bookings aren't expensive. But in more normal times, booking a day or two in advance is only going to see the Latitude fare buckets open.


The point was, they don't need LMU's. Or a LMU offer would simply be the fare differential to a revenue J bucket. In many cases, the difference between full-Y and full-J is trivial. Sometimes its actually cheaper to book a discounted business, than a full-Y, but travel policy requires booking in Economy class, so the discount-J can't be booked even though it might be cheaper.

Call in? Good one... ROFL! That's an enormous buzz-kill, waiting on the phone half an hour.

superangrypenguin

I'd split the post and reply individually, but you clearly have much more patience than I do

The cite you gave was for an Assistant Deputy Minister, not a typical government employee. And it also had this caveat: "* Charges for travel on aircraft owned and operated by the Government of Canada are indicated when levied."

Looking at the prices that were quoted on that individual for airfare, yes, I agree, that person must be booking a full Y fare. Sadly, we won't know.

We are also assuming that that individual booked on AC. That could be a cheap up front ticket on say a US carrier. Also, sadly it doesn't say, but meh, we work with what information we have.

Full Y + trivial upfare purchase argument = Very highly unlikely. That individual would have to know you can even do that. I bet you a gazillion Greek new currency that they even know that they are perhaps on a full Y fare and can buy up to lowest business. The probability of this is incredibly low.

And quote: "In many cases, the difference between full-Y and full-J is trivial. " - HUH?

And lastly, as reported on FT, the hold times now are short. 3-5 minutes. It was even some UA FTer was the one who reported it when he had to call in for seat assignment for his AC metal flight a few weeks ago.

Also, quote: "
The argument was, certain public servants and executives game the system to generate bookings on high fares, which are then subsequently upgraded at little or no cost. Thus circumventing Y-only travel policies."

Yes, so do many corporate employees. But most of us book our own travel, Assistant Deputy Ministers most likely do not. So I will guess that he, being fairly high up, have their own travel policies.

The majority of government employees do not have titles like that

Arcanum

The difference, of course, is that the hydro company has peak load (usually gas turbines) which it can turn up or down to balance supply and demand. The J cabin is a fixed size and thus more like the base load (nuclear/coal) which can't be quickly or easily changed.

I did this just last week when a potential supplier insisted I fly to Belgium to look at his new product. I really didn't want to go all the way there so I demanded they fly me in J. Since his corporate policy didn't allow either employees or customers to fly J, he booked me a Latitude ticket and I paid the $400 difference to change to lowest J out of pocket.

superangrypenguin

We were discussing how employers treat their employees. This position is quite different where someone wants your business and wants to treat you as well as possible. Slightly different.

And also again, in your case, you didn't buy a LMU, you swapped out to J, so again, LMU's are priced suboptimally because you knew to swap out to J instead of buying the LMU, despite your latitude fare. (as LMUs are priced weirdly to not consider base fare)

cperciva

I don't know that much about conferences which government employees attend, but I do know a bit about tech conferences... and there are a lot of people who register at the last minute or register early and then cancel at the last minute. In many cases it's a matter of "I know I *want* to attend, but I don't know if I'll be *able* to attend."

Depending on the prices of different tickets and how likely it is that you'll have to cancel your conference-attending plans, it might make sense to wait.

PLeblond

Anyone considers they don't really want to sell LMU's?

Most people won't even look at purchasing PY, let alone J. They won't pre-pay for seats and will pick another airline for only a few dollars difference.

So who is the targeted customer? The dreamer who hopes to get a super deal and has always dreamt of flying in J? That flyer won't pay these prices, unless they hit it big in Vegas. The target customer is the who who regularly flies J and makes a conscious decision at the time of booking when looking at pricing.

If you are truly considering an LMU (not at very low prices) then you are wondering: "Should I have just bought it at the time of booking?"

Maybe the initiative is to make you think at the next time of booking:... I should just buy J.

superangrypenguin

Then why sell a LMU at all?

It is my opinion that if that is the target customer then why did they spend all that $ to setup this system?

That # has to really really small. If someone regularly flies J (the word regular is key), then that person has an expense policy (business or personal) of paying for J regularly. Why would that person book Y and then chance it for a LMU?

And also, for the leisure traveler, who can fly J and regularly flies J (say infrequently) for vacation, why not just book J then and get it over with? That person has no incentive to play the game because J is within their pocket book policy.

PLeblond

That's my point. If they sell them at these prices, great, but that isn't the purpose, I believe.

Saying: Why not sell them last minute and pick up some extra money? is short sighted on a revenue level and could reduce the value and of the cabin and trend towards people buying less J in advance hoping to get a deal. .

As for the number being small, I've always said a huge majority of flyers buy Tango (probably around 90%+). If you add those who always fly J, the target for a LMU is tiny.

Thus, the resulting group of people are those who hesitated in buying J in the first place and bought Y thinking maybe I'll get an LMU. SO that customer sees the price and thinks... I should have just bought J in the first place, then reinforce that notion when they board and see the J seats. Then reinforce it even more throughout the flight.

I am suggesting its designed to increase long term spending of a portion of semi-frequnt flyers. Isn't that what airline pricing is all about? Maximizing spending from each segment?

superangrypenguin

Your posts always make me think. Thanks for the clarification and for the post.

I completely agree that the # of people buying these fares are minute. Same reason above, and add onto that even people who are passionate about this airline and come on FT to discuss it, even we find that the pricing is insane. Based on random tidbits here and there about people's professions, I'd also probably guess that the the average income of those on this board is higher than the average in Canada. And even we constantly make the comments that the pricing is insane.

Anyways, the reason I bring this up is the same reason why I originally proposed we split this thread from the other one. - which is to find what IS the target market. (I should have been more clear on this).

It seems like *almost everywhere we read on this thread indicates that the market is non existent or very small.

Yet, (going on a limb here), AC IT probably invested a lot of $ to allow for this to happen. Ben has publicly said on here that the smallest change costs a tremendous amount of money.

So who are buying these things then? There have been very few ideas on this thread, I'm wondering if there are any more.

It just makes no rational sense to me.

The only one that I have thought of recently is that IF I flew once or twice a year, I'd buy a Tango fare and hope for a LMU (and since pod/non pod LMU's on this route are basically the same) at about $650, I'd do it.

But surely, if the average leisure flier is SO darn concerned about costs (as evidence by the 777HD, Rouge, etc etc), then again, the market is so small. But I'm flat out of other ideas now.