F Class availability anomaly
 

I was checking availability for upgrades on ITN for a RDU-EWR-PHX flight on Sunday, and encountered the following for my flights:

RDU EWR CO438 A2 D2 F0 .......
EWR PHX CO1923 A3 D2 F0 ........

while the another flight pair that shared the first flight segment showed the following:

RDU EWR CO438 A4 D4 F1.......
EWR PHX CO2678 A3 D3 F3..... (America West codeshare, yuck)

Checking the RDU EWR segment alone was showing the same lack of F class as the first. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/confused.gif

I should add that I have found F to be available on occasion when checking segments as single one-way flights, but not available as part of a connection.

I called the Elite line and was upgraded on CO438.

Aaaaah, the mysteries of yield management. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

[This message has been edited by Old Gold (edited 06-08-2000).]

Interesting

Old Gold:

Two things can happen to cause this. The first is much more likely.

(1) The system is designed to display the maximum number of seats available for the TOTAL routing input. So, in the example you posted, if 1923 has F0, even if 438 pulled as an independent flight shows Fx, where x>0, 438 will show F0 when paired with 1923. So, again using your example, the fact that 2678 by process of elimination had one F seat, caused 438 to display this seat when paired with 2678.

You should note that an exception is sometimes found in the case of illegal routings, e.g. if you have been ticketed on an illegal routing [which can be the case in a variety of situations these days - for example travelocity.com is infamous for allowing illegal routings to be ticketed] the CO computers may not behave as per the above.

(2) It is always possible, of course, that things simply changed in the split second between times you checked.

I should make the general disclaimer that my first hand knowledge of the CO yield management systems is about 5 years old.

Hi Yall,

From what I know, thesilb is correct on his 2 points. And I'll add a 3rd (though I think this situation looks more like example #1)...

Yeild Management software "marries" together city pairs. It doesn't think only of the availibilty of individual flights. The only way I can think of to explain this is by using a hypothetical situation:
You wish to travel DFW to LAX, but not at full coach fare.
All of the DFW - LAX flights are sold out of discount seats.
You know of a connection thru AUS but checking the availibilty of the DFW to AUS flight shows that discount seats on it are also gone.
For the heck of it, you try "multiple stops" option and check availibility DFW - AUS - LAX and surprise !!! The same DFW to AUS flight now shows discount inventory!

Yeild Management's thinking is:
DFW to LAX is in an oversold situation, no discount seats avalable; but if I can find someone willing to buy a ticket at full coach, I'll gladly take the $600 even if I have to pay a $300 oversale voucher to another passenger.
DFW to AUS is getting kinda full tonite. It's not oversold but let's not sell any more seats at the "Southwest" discount rate, I think we can win by holding out for a higher fare.
AUS to LAX is half empty; at this point I'll take any reasonable fare (this is where the Internet specials, Priceline.com, etc come into play).
I have a passenger looking for a discount seat DFW - AUS - LAX. Do I want to sell that AUS - LAX seat so bad that I'll give up on holding back for a higher fare on the DFW - AUS leg ?

Possibly CO's EWR - PHX was oversold in coach (it could still show some availbilty in the higher coach fares ... ref DFW - LAX above) but the HP flight was wide open, so availability for anything connecting to it could be "loosened". Even if you were thinking of buying a first class seat that day, it would still be to the airline's advantage to "sway" you over to the open flight (they may wat to hold that F seat on the full trip for an "operational" upgrade which is cheaper than paying an oversale voucher).

Disclaimer: A few years back, I was a gate agent for one of the majors; my knowledge of yeild management is also about 5 years old.



[This message has been edited by steve64 (edited 06-09-2000).]

Here's another example of creative yield management. Check out the CO flights from NRT to SIN, which are codeshares actually operated by NW. I was trying to get a flight on CO from IAH-NRT-SIN, and it seemed that the NRT-SIN segment was always sold out (Y0, let alone K0, etc.).

But, they are sold out only if you are connecting with a trans-pacific flight operated by CO. If you connect with a trans-pacific flight operated by NW, then the NRT-SIN segment magically almost always has inventory available. This is true even if the NW trans-pacific flight is ticketed under the CO codeshare.

The above behavior I can see through ITN has been confirmed as the same that CO ticket agents see in their computers, so it's not just an ITN quirk.

The NRT-SIN segment on NW must be in high demand, as it is fed by all of the NRT flights from North America, plus the Continental ones. NW must want to avoid having all of the seats on these flights taken by CO customers, which would prevent ticketing their own passengers on this connecting flight. This, I understand. What is amazing to me is that all of the CRS's apparently have support for just this situation, which leads me to believe that it's more common than we think.

[This message has been edited by Steve M (edited 06-09-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Steve M (edited 06-09-2000).]

Those are great posts with excellent info. I am wondering in the case of the Asia example, do you know if CO/NW use "blocking" or "open seating" ? I thought open seating, but your post makes it seem like maybe the code share agreement calls for blocking.

You probably know what I mean, but by blocking I mean CO either purchases a fixed number of seats or commits financially in some way to them on the codeshare flight, and when they're gone, they're gone. CO has no ability through its CRS to get at the remaining inventory.

I'm a little out of my area of knowledge here, but somehow I thought the CO/NW agreement was NOT like this - that they literally shared available inventory on the code shares. I gues this is not true? Post if you know. Thanks.

My understanding of the CO/NW agreement is to share seats (no blocking) on only domestic flights. Anything else where they code share is subject to blocking. (I found this out trying to book EWR - HKG recently using both CO and NW flights to get there through Tokyo and not having to go through Guam both ways.)

The CO/NW situation is clearly a capacity management situation.

Carriers that have local traffic rights between foreign city pairs often sell at below the price of the locals. This means that UA and NW have huge demand for cheap seats between, say, NRT and HKG or NRT and SIN.

But if you sell the whole plane on cheap intra-asia tickets, then you have no space to sell a North American originating passenger who actually wants to get to the farther point.

So they hold on to NRT SIN seats to marry up with US inbounds, which are not avaible to connections or originating pax at the intermediate point.

Similarly, you will often find flights to the intermediate point sold out, but available to the farther point. This is almost invariably the case on SQ2 between SFO and HKG. It will be sold out in P and J, but there will be plenty of seats to SIN.