AA International Inventory - CDG-DFW- Makes No Sense
Oct 2, 2020, 11:56 am
#1
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AA International Inventory - CDG-DFW- Makes No Sense
OK - worked for a major airline in sales for many years, and I have to admit, I don't get this. Someone please explain. Needed a OW from CDG-DFW on Wednesday, we must have been 20+ passengers on a B777 (I know nice but sad). The seats are unavailable for sale. Same as all of next week, if you check AA.com, economy is sold out for a OW ticket (unless you use FF miles - which I ended up doing), yet the cabin is wide open, very wide open. So then I thought ok, must be cargo (weight & balance) - but no, we only used 1/2 the runway. Unless it is some government controlled limitation, these flights are operating at a HUGE loss. Please send your hypothesis here... Thanks
Last edited by jpschoubert; Oct 2, 2020 at 1:16 pm
Oct 2, 2020, 12:16 pm
#3
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Oct 2, 2020, 7:06 pm
#4
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IME, for some reason the OW carriers have generally chosen not to offer reasonable one-way TATL fares like *A and ST do. I usually use miles or fly a different carrier (This decision is the only reason I have ever set foot on EI, DE and UX aircraft) as it is hard to justify spending 5x more just to fly OW.
Oct 2, 2020, 7:39 pm
#5
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OK - worked for a major airline in sales for many years, and I have to admit, I don't get this. Someone please explain. Needed a OW from CDG-DFW on Wednesday, we must have been 20+ passengers on a B777 (I know nice but sad). The seats are unavailable for sale. Same as all of next week, if you check AA.com, economy is sold out for a OW ticket (unless you use FF miles - which I ended up doing), yet the cabin is wide open, very wide open. So then I thought ok, must be cargo (weight & balance) - but no, we only used 1/2 the runway. Unless it is some government controlled limitation, these flights are operating at a HUGE loss. Please send your hypothesis here... Thanks
Oct 2, 2020, 9:42 pm
#6
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Looks like a point of sale issue. If you purchase the one-way CDG-DFW from the US, the cheapest fare is in PE (seats are available in Y if you choose "Flexible" fares, but for more $). If you change the Location setting on AAs website to France, and are then able to find a way to purchase a ticket, you can get more reasonable one-way fares in Y (looks like around 800 EUR for next week).
Oct 3, 2020, 12:51 pm
#8
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Oct 12, 2020, 9:41 am
#9
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Something is going on with AA pricing - Many of the International routes are not competitive at all, almost as if they did not want the business. Some people can still travel despite the restrictions, very strange.
Oct 12, 2020, 10:33 am
#10
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Oct 12, 2020, 10:52 am
#11
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It's been strange and given that all flights are empty - I don't get it either. I booked VIE-MIA-VIE yesterday - with instant Systemwide upgrade - for $550 return. MUC-MIA-MUC where you have (might have) a LH direct flight as compettion in Nov would have been double that price. I get the usual competitive pricing decisions - but right now as flights are empty (my most crowded TATL cabin was VS J a week ago with 3 pax and a total of 24 pax (including 1 baby) on the entire plane) I find it odd how unattractive most AA fares are. BA is a lot cheaper, as is LH etc...
Oct 12, 2020, 12:24 pm
#12
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It's been strange and given that all flights are empty - I don't get it either. I booked VIE-MIA-VIE yesterday - with instant Systemwide upgrade - for $550 return. MUC-MIA-MUC where you have (might have) a LH direct flight as compettion in Nov would have been double that price. I get the usual competitive pricing decisions - but right now as flights are empty (my most crowded TATL cabin was VS J a week ago with 3 pax and a total of 24 pax (including 1 baby) on the entire plane) I find it odd how unattractive most AA fares are. BA is a lot cheaper, as is LH etc...
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Oct 12, 2020, 2:42 pm
#13
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That you do not like the fares that it is choosing to offer, does not mean that there is an issue with any employees at the airline ; the pricing may be quite intentional
Simple solution would be to book on a carrier that has the lower fares
Just doing a check on matrix, for r/t journeys with 1 stop , AA's fares seem to be in line with other carriers starting at < $1300 - the lower fares I can see on Matrix all show 2 stops and long journey times
Looking at Brussels fares, it seems about $100 more than the cheapest 1 stop service and $200 more than a 2 stop
Simple solution would be to book on a carrier that has the lower fares
Just doing a check on matrix, for r/t journeys with 1 stop , AA's fares seem to be in line with other carriers starting at < $1300 - the lower fares I can see on Matrix all show 2 stops and long journey times
Looking at Brussels fares, it seems about $100 more than the cheapest 1 stop service and $200 more than a 2 stop
Last edited by Dave Noble; Oct 12, 2020 at 2:51 pm
Oct 12, 2020, 2:47 pm
#14
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That could very well be! Last year, it took these "analysts" over a month to figure out a mistake where MIA LAX 77W had J priced four times higher than F when both cabins were entirely empty!
Oct 12, 2020, 2:59 pm
#15
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For myself, I'm doing all I can to avoid extra connections at major airports. I'd really rather not make a double connection to get from Western Europe to the US. It's bad enough to be forced to go through LHR as it is. Though I suppose if everything remains consolidated in Terminal 5, that makes things a little better.