DiamondSM

Have you see the same "problems"

Price for intl flight have jump between 2 to 3 times in Y , 6 x in PS, for the next 6 months. ?

xliioper

Care to provide an example? Many things can cause a "jump". It could be the lower priced fare filings are no longer there (although it is unusual to see the sort of "jump" in the range you have given). Or it could be you are looking at a popular time and there is no longer inventory in the lower fare buckets corresponding to the lower priced fare filings. Also, as you get into the cheapest fares, you will find lengthier advance purchase requirements (so the closer you get to your travel dates, you will no longer be able to purchase the cheapest fares). They also generally have roundtrip purchase with minimum stay requirements (such as 7 days or a Saturday night). If you alter your searches so they no longer meet those, you can see significant variation in the fares that are available for purchase.

DiamondSM

YUL -> PVG any date in March, April, May, June (most of it are low season)
Between 6 to 14 days.
Normal price Y= 950cad to 1050cad , PS (I have a reservation paid at 1545cad (now over 10K to add a person)
I also check departure from BTV or other airport (price increase also, but less).

tardyturtle

I've experienced some higher than usual domestic fares in March, largely because less expensive fare classes were available on my routes. My practice has been to book these fares, and if prices go down (e.g., lower fare class becomes available), use the "modify flights" feature on the website to rebook the same flights at the lower fare class for an eCredit. This is fine as long as you'll travel more to use the eCredit.

M60_to_LGA

Don't prices sometimes also rise right before a big sale? Often US airlines offer sales around Thanksgiving (Black Friday and all that) - maybe they're raising fares now in order to pretend they're slashing them next week? I got an email from AA the other day talking about a Thanksgiving sale; maybe DL is preparing to do the same.

Or who knows, PVG is likely a pretty big destination for business travelers; maybe DL is pricing that route higher now because it expects business travelers to fill the seats once the pandemic is over. They could be bargaining that lots of business trips that were iced due to the virus will be rescheduled for spring once (hopefully) the vaccine is out and the situation improves.

In any event, airline pricing is pretty inscrutable, and these kinds of fluctuations happen pretty regularly. I'd just keep checking periodically.

MSPeconomist

Flights to mainland China are severely restricted due to (Chinese) government rules. This, combined with price inelastic demand for business travel to mainland China, is causing huge price increased for the few operating flights. IIRC people are reporting ticket prices for UA of about US$7000 for coach and up to US$25,000 for business class seats.

DiamondSM

I agree price change, but it is first time I see price "jump" 3x in Y and 6x in PS.
PS on Delta is more high than Business on other major airline (double than Business of Air Canada).

xliioper

First of all, this is clearly limited to China markets and not something DL is doing globally. If you check fares to places like ICN and HND, you will see they are in line with other carriers. Second, the issue is due to DL zeroing out bucket availability in the lower fare buckets on these flights. The lower fares still exist, you just can't purchase them because there is generally no availability in discount fare buckets (such as I/Z for D1, A/G for Premium Select, and Q/K/L/U/T/X/V coach buckets). With all the uncertainty, DL is likely zeroing out these lower fare buckets because they don't want to sell a bunch of tickets when they believe there is a high probability the passengers won't take the flights or the flights will end up being cancelled. You can check bucket availability on ExpertFlyer (fee based), or there is basic limited availability checking on this site for free -- https://flightavailability.bcdtravel.com

Also, it looks like UA and AA are doing the same thing with their bucket inventory to China. UA looks to be worse than DL as they don't have anything open in coach other than Y bucket on YUL-PVG until October.

flyerCO

It's Saturday. This always happens.

xliioper

So it looks there is bucket availability in lower classes starting in April. But seeing on EF that they did make pretty significant fare changes (upwards) on November 11th out of north american cities to China. This also explains higher fares.

tardyturtle

Good point. I did get some minor schedule changes pushed through yesterday, so perhaps checking back on Monday would be prudent.

xliioper

This is definitely not just a Saturday schedule change thing in terms of China flights. You can see the big difference in fare filings for cheapest fares between November 10th and 11th (1.5 weeks ago) on EF. There's been a few further tweaks in filings since then, but nothing major. Below is for YUL, but you can see the same thing from all other North American markets as well. I initially thought pricing was primarily due to limiting bucket inventory, but after researching some on EF, you can see even when bucket inventory is wide open there is very limited choices in fares (with cheapest coach fares now being L fares).

Fares on November 10th.


Fares on November 11th

DiamondSM

I am very lucky to have book my trip already in PS (and using 2 GUC to go in "J").

When I see the price now of over 10K cad for the same date. I think is... "insane" (I understand price increase, but not 6x the price at more than 4-6 months before the departure, when the flight is "empty").

flyerCO

China is definitely crazy currently. However analyzing based on fare class availability on Saturday is also crazy as far as DL.