why no last minute deals?

wrote in message
s.com...
But I am still hopeful of hearing a real explanation as to why
airlines have never tried offering last minute walkup fares or a last
minute auction at the terminal.
[snip]

Priceline and Hotwire exist for this purpose and if you book the night
before for an international flight, that is *almost* like a last-minute
auction. I believe you can book the same day for domestic flights in some
cases, but I'm not sure of that.

Traveler

It has been done extensively in the past with tickets sold for use on a
space available basis. The airlines have simply discovered that it
doesn't pay in an unregulated environment. I have no idea why but they
are convinced. FFM

wrote:
Speaking as the original poster of the question, I do appreciate the
many responses. And I do recognize that thread drift is normal.

But I am still hopeful of hearing a real explanation as to why
airlines have never tried offering last minute walkup fares or a last
minute auction at the terminal.

It's not enough to say because the current system of charging a
premium maximizes revenue from businessmen and other who must fly.

Planes still fly with empty seats. To my knowledge, not one airline
has ever tried a genuine last minute walk up fare for those seats or
an auction system that would maximize occupancy.

If no one has ever tried it, how can anyone argue that something else
works better?

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wrote:

But I am still hopeful of hearing a real explanation as to why
airlines have never tried offering last minute walkup fares or a
last minute auction at the terminal.

Airlines have tried that type of last minute standby fare, they just
gave it up decades ago when they found it didn't earn them any
additional money.

Planes still fly with empty seats. To my knowledge, not one airline
has ever tried a genuine last minute walk up fare for those seats or
an auction system that would maximize occupancy.

The object isn't to fill all the seats, the object is to get the most
money from the customers on a particular flight.

If no one has ever tried it, how can anyone argue that something else
works better?

It has been tried, in fact it used to be the normal method of selling
tickets.

All the airlines in the 1960s offered last minute standby fares that
were something like 50% of the regular fare. Everything changed with the
introduction of computer systems that could calculate the anticipated
demand and apply fares that would gain the greatest revenue from an
aircraft. That didn't mean that all seats had to be filled, or even
that load factors had to be high. The object was to collect the greatest
amount of money from the limited numbers of passengers that would be
flying that day. Standby fares didn't attract extra passengers, they
simply diluted the amount of money that could be earned.

Robert Crandall of American Airlines is credited with applying the
concept to their fare structures, and saving the airline from the
oblivion that swallowed Eastern, PanAm, Braniff, and others. In
particular, the strategy managed to earn American enough money that it
withstood the attack by the low fare carrier People Express, which had
low fares, but did not practice yield management. American was able to
earn more profit, even though it was a high cost carrier, and even
though it had a lower load factor than People Express. PE eventually
went bankrupt.

Here is an article that discusses what American was able to do. You can
find others by searching Google for Crandall's name and "yield
management."

http://www.siam.org/siamnews/mtc/mtc694.htm

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 22:40:55 -0600, "Douglas W. Hoyt"
wrote:

Your proposal ignores all of that, because you want a last minute cheap
seat.

Please do not personalize this. I did not ask why I cannot get a last
minute discount. I asked why the airlines have never, to my knowledge,
experimented with such things as an auction at the gate for selected
empty seats.

My question has nothing to do with yield management or pricing
theories. It only focuses on the fact that there are flights with
empty seats. and the airlines, while suffering steady financial
losses, have never experimented with ideas that might yield extra
revenue from those seats.

There are solutions for all your objections (security,
unpredictability of passemgers, etc etc.).

Instead of focusing on why it won't work - I'd rather keep asking -
how do they know when they've never tried?
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On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 08:53:52 GMT, "Traveler"
wrote:

Priceline and Hotwire exist for this purpose and if you book the night
before for an international flight, that is *almost* like a last-minute
auction.

Not at all. Priceline commits to prices for seats that they can sell
for whatever they can get. Fools overpay because it's a blind auction
in which they have no feedback as to what the seat sold for.

Neither is a last minute open cry auction.
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On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 15:44:02 GMT, "Frank F. Matthews"
wrote:

It has been done extensively in the past with tickets sold for use on a
space available basis. The airlines have simply discovered that it
doesn't pay in an unregulated environment. I have no idea why but they
are convinced. FFM

Yours is the first relevant response I've seen to this question.

But, respectfully, it's missing essential information. Can you tell us
more? Who tried it and when?

That information would be grately appreciated.
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On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 03:36:55 GMT, James Robinson
wrote:
Airlines have tried that type of last minute standby fare, they just
gave it up decades ago when they found it didn't earn them any
additional money.

My first flight was at age 19 in 1953, more than 5 decades ago. Long
ebfore jet airplanes. Long before computers. s.

During the 1960s and until the mid-70s, a time when I sometimes took
10 and 20 flights a month to operate my nationwide business, there
were no variations in fares and certainly no "last minute" walkup
fares.

ALL fares were regulated by the government. Discounts and competitve
pricing was not permitted. The flight from O'Hare to New York and back
was, as I recall, roughly $100, regardless if you flew on any of a 1/2
dozen airlines. The price was set and that was it. Tickets on one
airline, for that reason, were fully exchangable and honored by all
the others.

That did not change until deregulation.

Since that time, I have never heard or read of a single verifiable
case of any airline offering a last minute auction or a discounted
walkup fare.


If no one has ever tried it, how can anyone argue that something else
works better?

It has been tried, in fact it used to be the normal method of selling
tickets.

Never happened. When? By whom?

All the airlines in the 1960s offered last minute standby fares that
were something like 50% of the regular fare.

No. Could not have happened. As I said, prices were fixed during that
time. No airline of the time would dare compete on price.

Does anyone have any verififable facts to confirm the idea has been
given a fair test?

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On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 05:22:49 GMT,
wrote:

It has been tried, in fact it used to be the normal method of selling
tickets.

Never happened. When? By whom?

Right now, Amigo Airlines.

http://www.amigoairways.ca/itmidx2.htm

Never say never....

More seriously, I have vague recollection of People's express or
Virgin Atlantic doing very cheap standby fares. Can't find a reference
though.

In article m,
wrote:

But I am still hopeful of hearing a real explanation as to why
airlines have never tried offering last minute walkup fares or a last
minute auction at the terminal.

Hm. I was at BCN, Terminal A, an hour ago, and noticed that some
airlines have little kiosks there, with last-minute deals posted on
printed sheets. Prices seemed quite reasonable (e.g., EUR 529 to
Tokyo on SWISS). These were explicitly described as last-minute deals.

And you should instead focus on why they decided to drop the concept of
Standby tickets which they used for years. They, for some reason,
decided that standby was not worth it. It accomplished much of what you
propose. I suspect that they feared that too high a portion of their
regular passengers would be willing to risk it. FFM

wrote:

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 22:40:55 -0600, "Douglas W. Hoyt"
wrote:

Your proposal ignores all of that, because you want a last minute cheap
seat.

Please do not personalize this. I did not ask why I cannot get a last
minute discount. I asked why the airlines have never, to my knowledge,
experimented with such things as an auction at the gate for selected
empty seats.

My question has nothing to do with yield management or pricing
theories. It only focuses on the fact that there are flights with
empty seats. and the airlines, while suffering steady financial
losses, have never experimented with ideas that might yield extra
revenue from those seats.

There are solutions for all your objections (security,
unpredictability of passemgers, etc etc.).

Instead of focusing on why it won't work - I'd rather keep asking -
how do they know when they've never tried?
CaribeJoe - Moderator
Non-commercial My Caribbean.Info Forums
Free Caribbean Destination Directories
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Post your own trip reports and photos
Hotel and Air Deals and Rough Guide Reports
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