Have you ever gone to buy a plane ticket and the next day has a different price? Why is that? Well, let’s explore the reason why flight prices change.
1) Profiling
Airlines profile their customers to help them adjust prices. Working like this, they can separate them into different classes, such as business or economy… So that means a different price too.
2) Airline Profit
Despite what we all used to think, they don’t get their main profit from third class, nope, they get it from premium class travelers. Even though there are less premium class seats, their price is so expensive that they make more profit with them than they do with the entire third class section and also take up less space in the cabin.
3) Booking in advance
The airlines know that tourist passengers are going to book their tickets a long time in advance and are probably going to be shopping around for the best price. But, business passengers tickets often need to be booked at the last minute, and seeing as it’s their employer who pays for their ticket, they’re less likely to complain about the pricing. So they take advantage of it and rise the prices for that period.
4) Basic economy fare
The basic economy fare is actually created by a program that combines taxes and fuel. So we don’t really have a person to blame for that. This is also a good thing, because consumers can use websites that know the airlines’ algorithms and past data and can predict the lowest price. So, yeh… it’s not so bad after all.
5) Price discrimination
Another reason for higher prices is price discrimination, where airlines bump up the price on more popular flights. There are also travel agents or price comparison websites, which can introduce a further level of price discrimination. And yes… it’s legal
6) Days of the week
There are some days when is cheaper to buy your flight ticket. For example, Monday, Friday or Sunday are the most expensive days to leave because business travelers leave or return from their trip, and families leave or return from their weekend trip.
7) Cheaper areas
It doesn’t always apply but, in general, if there is a lot of airlines competing in one area, the tickets tend to be cheaper. In these cases, it’s better to buy tickets in advance.
8) Consolidated fares
In the cases where you need to book a lot of seats for a flight, and you do it though a travel agent, they can directly negotiate your fare with the airline to get a better price.
9) Trends comparison
The airlines also have programs that check previous fares and compare them. So that, if tickets start to sell faster than before, the price rises. And if a competitor raises their fares, other airlines will probably raise their fairs too.
Which of these reasons do you find the most annoying?
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