Name Your Price Flights!
 

Not a new model. Priceline did it for years and ultimately quit.

Personally I would never feel comfortable saying I’ll pay $X for a flight and not knowing if I’ll end up on Delta or Spirit. I also dislike guessing at an acceptable bid, and the multiple rounds of offers if my bid is too low. Show me actual flights and actual prices and I’ll pick one, but I’m not going to play a guessing/gambling game to save a few bucks. But I suspect I, like many others on here, are not your target market - infrequent, highly price sensitive travelers who just need to get somewhere and have no airline preferences.

"People who sell tickets"? Would these be third parties, private individuals who search air fares, OLTAs, even mileage brokers?

I used Priceline once for airplane tickets. It was ok.

That's how Priceline got started. Priceline was name your price, for flights and hotels, but later abandoned it in favor of traditional model.

As others have noted, Priceline started out using this business model, and the airlines themselves supported them. But, since it ultimately crumbled, I don't think you have a good business case as we move into 2020.

I liked Priceline (and Hotwire) for hotels and car rentals because I didn't care if I ended up in Hilton v Marriott or Budget v Hertz, but I only used them for plane tickets when fares were really high.

How transparent would it be? Could I pick a specific itinerary before bidding on it? Or just name departure and arrival city and take whatever they throw at me?