What's With the Crazy Price Swings Lately?
 

I don't remember PDX to SAN being $500 direct one way for up to 7 days out from booking. Even last year same day booking would be $250 one way. PDX to SEA is $214. Why is the shortest flight between their two largest hubs (which usually never got higher than 120 bucks same day) now almost double price? And it's not just same day. PDX to SEA is 214 all the way through the 6th. This is absurd. I understand Alaska has cut lots of flights recently, but even SEA to SAN same day is $249 same day which is what PDX used to be. Why is Portland, which is a big hub, now totally rip off prices? I can fly PDX to SAN on United for $250 today but Alaska is $500. Can anyone give some insight into this? It's been horrible prices all of January and now it seems well into Feb that won't change either.

They just lost a ton of money after the holiday melt down. If higher fares are more profitable and people are willing to pay them, why should they offer lower prices? If you have an alternative that is cheaper, just take that. If enough people book other airlines and AS can't sell their seats, they will lower their prices or further cut frequency. Blindly following one airline often does not work out economically. Look at your own interests first and if they happen to coincide with your airline of choice for any given trip, then consider yourself fortunate:)

Huh, I wonder what was happening from March 2020 through early 2021 that might have made it an unusual year in the airline industry and thus a bad comparison to times where fares might be higher.

I’m sure I will come up with it sometime, but can’t think of it off the top of my head.

I did a historical search on ExpertFlyer and the $499 fare (BH0OASMN) on PDX-SAN non-stop with less than 7-day advance purchase (and nothing cheaper) has been there for at least a year (although it used to be an S fare). You can tell the connecting fares from the non-stop fares by the third letter from end of the fare basis code (it's 'S' on fares with non-stop routing). The lack of LCC/ULCC competition on non-stop PDX-SAN is almost certainly a big factor here. PDX-SEA and SEA-SAN only has fellow legacy carrier DL as a competitor and legacies are known to get a bit "chummy" at times on pricing when they don't have any LCC/ULCC competitors on a route. People often complain that WN is no longer an "LCC", but it still seems to be a price leader on short haul routes with non-stop service that other carriers tend to match.

I found some fares SEA-SAN r/t sub $200 recently. People want to go to sunny SAN

AS has fares from $59 ($89 main cabin) on SEA-SAN, but they have a 21-day advance purchase requirement. OP was specifically looking at fares with no advance purchase requirement. The closest in you would be eligible for a 21-day advance fare from today (1/31) would be on 2/21 or later.

Covid from the last 2 years doesn't seem to be the cause of this and if it was right now would not be the smart time to raise fares to make up for lost revenue because traffic on planes is still down a good amount. The best time to do that would be when traffic hits highs again. Guess you didn't think your reply through in your haste to be sarcastic. Further, as I mentioned, other carriers are not doing this. The discrepancy between other carriers is 100% cost on same day purchases. So again, your point, not really working out.

The distinction here is that the other carriers (like UA) only offer a connecting options. People tend to be willing to pay a premium for non-stop service (particularly people flying on business who tend to buy fares closer in). AS has some cheaper fares available on PDX-SAN with less than 7-day advance purchase if you are willing to connect. If you look at more competitive routes like PDX-SFO and SEA-SFO, you will find sub-$200 fares on AS non-stop flights with less than 7-day advance purchase because they are matching WN fares on PDX-OAK/SEA-OAK which are also non-stop flights.

If you check SFO-RDM fares (no LCC competition) both UA and AS charge $399 one-way with less than 7-day advance. SFO-ASE/EGE are also $399 one-way on UA (no competition) with less than 7-day advance.

The federal government was literally directly subsidizing carriers to fly planes. If you don’t think that had an effect on fares and comparing them between 2021 and 2022, there’s nothing else to say other than enjoy your connection at SFO flying UA and the extra cash in your pocket. I always found using UA (or VX) for shorthaul on the West Coast on SFO connections to be garbage because ATC holds out of SFO screw everything up. Hopefully it will go better for you.

Market dictates the price. March and April is spring break season.

Airlines price their fares based upon supply and demand just like every other business. Should Apple lower their prices because Hwawei is offering a lower price for their phones--no---because Apple can demand a higher price and people pay it. If your top priority is the lowest fare---then you should not be loyal to any airline and just take the one that is cheapest including baggage fees and any other amenities you need. AS will charge what it thinks it can get for each route. Government subsidies have ended so none of the airlines can continue to run a lot of money losing routes and have any hope of profitability. You already did your research and found a cheaper option, so go with that and be done with it. Why stress over something you have no control over?

Well, sort of. Airlines price their fares frequently on a "non-collusive" collusive basis. Most of the time, most competing airlines have exact or near exact pricing on exact routes. The big difference is how many seats go in and out of the various revenue buckets. If AS has fairly full planes on reduced capacity and thinks it can sell the last whatever percentage in the higher buckets, it is going to 0 out the lower buckets. AS would be a fool not to do so, and subject itself to D&O claims if pleasing an IBB poster (or anyone else for that matter) complaining about "insane prices" took priority over the bottom line.

I'm sure it did have an effect on the prices, though there's a lot of argument to be made about how much actually went into plane upkeep pilot salaries fuel costs etc and not stupid buybacks (for the record I'm a hard conservative but the abuse of the tax payer money flow is ridiculous). And the shafting started in january. As far as the supply and demand thing goes, I don't believe it for a second. A pure supply and demand system would not allow for routes to be exploited so that I can fly on a D or I fare, pick up the extra miles, and end up in the right place. Even if it means I'm paying for first on the exact same flight # that wanted $1800 and I'm only coughing up $150. I prefer not to do this though.

There's really no pure supply and demand system. And in the case of airlines, so long as an airline has enough capacity to supply as much or little capacity it may want to on a particular route, the airline controls the supply if an/or until someone else enters the market. If at reduced supply, there's enough demand to sell the last 20+ seats for $500 a pop, it hardly makes sense for an airline to dump extra capacity so it can sell another 100 seats for $100.

It's pretty cheap to go to BOS right now