FLIHGH

For flights through 1/3/17.

Dieuwer

I don't understand the logic of opening the schedule so late to book holiday flights.
Many (most?) people are booking their Christmas and NYE flights right now. It is high season, no reason to wait for the elusive bargain that never shows up.

sbm12

To reduce the chance of a schedule change which frustrates those same customers and ultimately costs the company more money. Or just because they hate customers, but that's probably not the case, right?

Also, if the fare is going to be the same anyways why give the company money now, 9 months in advance. May as well sit on it rather than advancing it to someone else.

escapefromnyc004

I tend to book as soon as the schedule is released which is normally at most 7 or 8 months early. I've had them cancel flights I was on twice and both times it cost them money. The first time they had to give me a $150 credit for the inconvenience and the second time they put me on a more expensive itinerary for the same cost. There are often schedule/layover changes, but I'm fine with schedule changes (if I ever complained these could cost the company more money as well).

My cancelled flights were September flights. I can understand them waiting on the more expensive / more important December flights.

Dieuwer

AA, DL, and UA open their schedule approx. 330 days in advance. They must dumb according to your logic.

sfozrhfco

Just because the legacies have been doing that for decades does not make it the best system. Posting a dummy schedule and place holding equipment just so you can potentially sell a seat 330 days in advance makes little sense. The vast majority of seats for carriers which are focused on North America are sold within 2 months of the flight date.

Dieuwer

Not for those seats over the Christmas and NYE Holidays.

BeantownFlyer

I think they do this intentionally to maximize their revenue. When the legacy carriers release their peak travel seats (i.e. Christmas week, etc.) there are typically some initial "bargains" to be had. For example, my BOS-STT tickets on AA for this past Christmas were $554 each way in First Class. I booked them 331 days out. A week later the F fare was over $900 one way, and coach was $560 one way.

By the time Jet Blue opens their holiday booking window the fares have crept up significantly on the legacy carriers. Jet Blue can and does premium price at this point since they are in the ballpark of where the legacy carriers have gone with pricing on their remaining seats. A lot of the supply is gone at that point!

So I go through this dilemma every year - do I book the AA first class connection when it goes on sale, or roll the dice that Jet Blue's non-stop will have some reasonably priced seats when they open for booking. For this past Christmas I went with the AA connection, which at least price wise was the right choice since Jet Blue came out with $800 one way fares once EMS was added in. So $554 in AA in first with a connection versus Jet Blue EMS for $800 non-stop. They are no dummies...

Dieuwer

And a lot of demand is gone too. Your point?
If JetBlue does not want to discount holiday airfare, they can open their schedule 331 days in advance and charge a premium regardless.

BeantownFlyer

The demand is there - at least from Boston where they are the dominant carrier and have the only nonstop service to many vacation destinations.

radiowell

Looks like BOS-LAX MINT flights are not loaded yet (promised Oct 20)? May be at the next extension date? For now, I've been "positioning" LAX-SFO flight/train/bus/car just to get the MINT to/from BOS.

flyerwma

This is not clear from the wiki at the top. When does the schedule open? At midnight on the selected date? Some other time?

Thanks.

adambisi

The schedule change for today extending to early Jan 2017 opens at noon EST.

Harmoncove

It's 1:48pm here in NYC and I cannot book a December flight to SJU. Anyone know what's up?

dw

Seems to be loaded into the GDS (schedules and fare bucket availability is now on ExpertFlyer), but not yet bookable anywhere yet for some reason.