presario1626

Looking at IAD-FRA flight at 4 weeks out, was shocked at what's normally a $2300 economy fare now cost almost $600 more, with seat map displaying only 1/3 seats occupied. Do they expect to sell most of those empty seats in 4 weeks?

mherdeg

I hate to have to be the one to tell you that you missed a whole bunch of $1500 round trips on *A carriers in business class, fares valid during peak summer season, filed from most domestic markets to most European cities (more so SkyTeam hubs). Fares were filed & pulled twice for about a day at a time a few weeks ago. That's what I thought you meant by "crazy summer fares"…

Yes, revenue management thinks they'll fill the planes in coach at the prices they've set; or at least they'll maximize profit per route. The algorithm doesn't want to be our friend but it does know how to make money.

If they're wrong and they leave the flights empty, this is great news either for nonrevenue passengers or for coach passengers who will get a little extra space. Lower than 100% load factors are better for passenger comfort.

flybit

they don't care they share the profit loss with AC/UA/LH. perhaps Swiss?

ThisYearsModel

FWIW, I did the same and shopped a few other US carriers. I found the same higher fares on all of them until September, when they return to their former pricing levels.

WineCountryUA

If no one blinks this will greatly improve the profit level for all TATL carriers.

aacharya

And we need to state the obvious again. Seat maps are not necessarily indicative of load.

mgcsinc

All the TATL carriers are charging a million bucks this summer and letting loads sit well under 100%. They're doing it for good reason, and they know exactly what they're doing.

I think that line is overplayed here. If there's still plenty of E- open, it's a reasonably good measure.

Kacee

I'm starting to think that whole thing was a pricing experiment. I wonder what conclusions UA drew and if we're ever going to see those again?

Thank you. Seat maps are generally an excellent indicator of loads, particularly in BF. Occasionally they are not.

presario1626

What good reason could that be? Doesn't seem to make much business sense to me.

ZZYZXROAD

You could be creative and fly a different airline or pay the price. I choose to not fly for those fares, instead of paying any airline that stupid fare.

medichill

It's the old sales adage: Would your rather sell one million apples for $1/each or one apple for $1M?

I don't pretend to know how to price flights, but I do read the WSJ and the airlines are making a lot of money right now, so I have to assume they know how to charge per seat.

In OPs scenario, if they have 100 seats available, they could sell them all for $2,300 or 80 of them at $2,900 and make the same money. So 20% of the seats could be empty and the income is the same. Of course, if they sell less because of the higher price, that's not good. But I'm pretty sure they have a good gauge of demand. And they can also sell some at a lower price at the last minute if they need to.

seanp7

Did you miss the business class <$1500 fare sale? Oh well.

LaserSailor

N small anecdotes about a fare on one route over 2-3 days vs an entire industry built about revenue management. This threads really don't show a lot of thought, frankly.

CIT85

RIC-CDG fares are now >$1800 mid-June (RIC-EWR-CDG) and >$2200 if RIC-IAD-CDG, significantly higher than when I searched a few months ago. UA.com is not showing connection flights via MUC which may lower the fares.

UA-NYC

What are AA & DL offering up?

Well - MOST airlines did quite well in Q1...

Lot of criticizing the intelligence of your fellow FTers...why do you bother to continue to grace us with your presence?