Swiss Tony

Last weekend the April 2012 timetable went on sale. I jumped straight in as I need to get the family from MCO up to EWR on April 14th. Tickets are something like $360 each, which IMO is mad. The legacy carriers are around the $100 mark for indirect flights. Jet Blue to IAD is $100. Heck, I was going to pay for the extra legroom seats - I can take DL in First class for just over $500 each.

I've never used B6 but surely they can't be THAT good...

bosnyc

Why would JetBlue sell "cheap" seats 8 months out? Some people are willing to pay a premium for a non-stop. If not enough people buy at the higher fare, they have plenty of time to discount. On the other hand, if they sell all the cheaper fares now, what happens closer in if demand goes up? Seats are all spoken for at low fares--there is no capacity left to sell for higher fares.

I personally have no problem buying B6 fares if they are a little steep. If the price drops (which usually happens with fares like the OP quotes), I just call and get the difference back in the form of a voucher. I don't really mind my money being tied up for a few extra months knowing that unlike other carriers, I can get a voucher for price drops.

Swiss Tony

Yes, but given i'm based in Europe, B6 isn't going to feature much on my travel plan so a voucher is no use at all. They're selling bargain fares to IAD that weekend, or to NYC the weekend after but I can only assume the NY schools must be on holiday that week.

darben

Did you try Continental which has a bigger presence at EWR

nsx

Southwest has done the same thing for many years. They almost always show high fares when the schedule first opens. The lowest fares typically appear 8 to 12 weeks before travel. The only exceptions are anniversary sales and other exceptional long-horizon systemwide sales.

I never understood how it made business sense for legacy airlines to offer deep discounts 11 months in advance on peak demand flights that were certain to sell out later at higher fares.

ET12

If legacies had deep discounts far out, it was most likely with limited inventory availability. Once those seats were sold, higher buckets would open up with steep price increases.

nsx

This is quite correct, but it does not explain why the airline would sell ANY seats at deep discounts when all seats can be sold at higher fares later.

ET12

Maybe we have different definitions of deep discounts. I would expect them to start selling at middle buckets and sell up from there. However, they can't sell all peak flights at max prices. There is competition to consider, so if it's priced too high too far out, customers will have no problem moving to other airlines. There is definitely a market for high bucket, low advanced purchase fliers. However, it is likely not large enough to fill up all the planes during the peak periods.

jj1987

You'd be surprised how many seats are sold the last 2 weeks of a flight. Speaking as someone who non revs, often times you'll see a half empty flight 2-3 weeks out and then realize that it's packed the day you want to hop on.

ET12

This is particularly true in business markets, where a large percentage of seats are sold between 0 and 14/21 days before the flight. However, on the leisure/vacation routes, it is more common to find a steady increase in load factor about three months out, moving toward the date of departure.

azdmelani

My guess is that the fares also have something to do with the week- it is a very popular vacation week for schools in the US, and NY area to Disney will be a popular route. Maybe fares will go down if the tickets arent selling well. but generally fares are higher that week because people expect it and will pay it.