SeatReserved

Hi,

just out of curiosity, would someone have insight on the following two examples? Would you consider this an ovesight on the pricing part or standard practice to come?
I've followed a few topics on how the airlines are free to price their routes as they see fit but somehow this is disconcerting to me. Not to say that other airlines offer the same service starting around 450USD DSS-HEL or HEL-DSS.

Ditto

Why do you think this is an oversight? While this example might be a bit extreme, prices A-B are almost never the same as prices B-A with legacy carriers.
And as you said yourself, other airlines offer it for much cheaper anyway.

SeatReserved

The oversight part comes to mind if you consider the possibility that with the FB do-over, someone has copy-pasted prices to a lot of flights and routes while calculating cents/mile. And this is the very positive me, trying to find the oversight.

Ditto

I highly doubt that the FB do-over have anything to do with cash flight prices, it seems more like there is just no availability in the lower booking classes when going DSS-HEL, which is odd but not impossible, do you have previous experience with the route and prices used to be cheaper?

Fabo.sk

It pretty well might even be the same class, or similar. Fares are directional, so there's no reason a fare from Finland to Senegal would be priced the same as a fare from Senegal to Finland. Indeed it might be bad for business, since the market of people wishing to travel from Finland to Senegal is very different from the market in the other direction. Even in the same bucket.

Either way it's extremely unlikely this pricing would have anything to do with upcoming FB changes. If there has been a human messup, I'd much sooner think it happened somewhere around switching from DAR to DSS.

Ditto

While fares are indeed directional, this isn't the cause for the big price difference here, the availability when booking DSS-HEL only seems to start at K fare class, where as HEL-DSS have cheaper ones.

Indeed

Fabo.sk

I haven't checked the available classes, but with this big of a difference I would also expect this to be the case.
If the difference was small, let's say to a 100-200 EUR, then it could be a different fare in the same fare class.

irishguy28

As it is not at all apparent what aspects of the calendars you posted you consider noteworthy, could you please explain what "oversight" you see in your posted examples?

As I can see nothing noteworthy in these examples, can you also explain what you think is the connection with the FB make-over/change-over? (I think that's the word you were going for; do-over is something completely different and not at all the correct choice) As you can see from the below, the start-date of the new FB programme has absolutely no impact on pricing.

On routes where not many airlines file a fare, there is far greater scope for charging higher prices - particularly where you are seen as being a "better" choice than some of the other players in the local market. That said, AF does not have the highest fares for this route.

If you wish to buy this ticket, and to fly Air France, I would advise you to buy separate tickets, and to allow a sufficient buffer between arrival/departure at CDG to account for delays, luggage issues, and the need to clear customs and meet check-in deadlines for the next ticket. You can fly DSS to CDG from as little as US$764 on your chosen dates; you can easily buy a separate CDG-HEL-CDG ticket for less than the ~$1000 required to buy travel all on one ticket.

wxman22

OK, Irish and Fabo have said it more than twice already, but let me paraphrase. The legacy (old) airlines charge prices based on the departing city and destination, NOT the city pair.
Why would they do that?
To make more money. Let me put it his way. Finns have a lot more money than Senegalese. therefore they know they will have more price conscious buyers (tourists) in Finland, than in Senegal, where probably most of the seats are sold to business and government, neither very price conscious as tourists.

Ditto

A K fare DSS-HEL is about 200€ more expensive than a K fare HEL-DSS.
The availability of an N fare when booking HEL-DSS makes up for most of the difference....

Fabo.sk

Called it!

SeatReserved

Thanks for the responses, all are much appreciated.
I normally would buy the ticket HEL-DSS but for this instance, specific dates are required in the DSS-HEL order.

AF indeed seems to use this as you've stated to make revenue. For me, it's just irritating, having flown AF for quite a while.

As for the FB part, there are times when pricing has mistakes. Sometimes to the flyers advantage, othertimes the other way. The pricing that I found seemed very odd to me as all the dates were priced at exactly the same USD amount. First reaction was correlation. My bad.

brunos

This is not secific t AF; it happens with ALL airlines.
They charge according to the market
I travel between Asia and Europe and pricing depends a lot on your origin. For example, Hong Kong is a very expensive departure point, so it is worth buying returntickets Europe-HKG rather than the reverse.