Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] Re: recent airline reviews

Subject: [OM] Re: recent airline reviews
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:55:24 -0800
Jerry Smith wrote:

><snip lots of good info> Please don't fly an airline
>just because they are the lowest fare, because as the
>saying goes, you will get what you pay for. 
>  
>
Would that it were that easy.

However, there is no clear realtionship between ticket price and 
maintenance quality that I can see. The same seats on the same planes go 
for all kinds of different prices.

I have a brother who flies a LOT on business. He has researched the 
ticket business. Contemporary ticket selling is highly sophisticated 
with semi intelligent models driving price. Each flight has base prices 
and basic targets. Here's a hypothetical example. If flight 123 is 30% 
full 30 days ahead of flight, 40% full at 17 days, 60 % at 14 days, 
etc., all tickets will be sold at the base price. If it is filling up 
faster than model, prices may be raised. If it falls behind, tickets are 
sold at lower prices until back on track.

Price can also depend on where you buy it. used to be Alaska tickets 
were cheaper on Travelocity. Last time, they were cheapest of all 
sources on their own web site.

Thus it is possible, and I've seen it online, for prices for the same 
flight, date, rules, etc., to go up or down over the period of a few 
minutes. A couple of years ago, I'd spent quite some time online looking 
for the best combo of price, time and itinerary for a trip to Boston. 
I'd looked at everything. Suddenly when I was at the next to last stage 
of confirming and paying, Up popped a message about a cheaper flight 
combo. It was only a couple of $ cheaper, but was non-stops both ways, 
rather than one-stops. I jumped on it. When I checked back later for 
curiousity, that combo was gone.

Great trip with good flight experiences. Next year, I had to go through 
O'Hare. Delays both ways, worse coming home.

Anyway, none of this makes me think there is a useful relationship 
between ticket price and maintenance, as the prices dance around so 
much. And an info us regular folks may think we have about maintenance 
standards on various airlines is more likely hearsay than fact.

I certainly sympathize with the plight of so many airline employees 
these last few years, but I just don't have the information to know what 
it means when setting up a trip. As a simple for instance, you didn't 
say which airline you work for nor whether you would want your family to 
fly on it. I don't blame you, but it's indicative of how little useful 
info is out there.

Moose


==============================================
List usage info:     http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies:        olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz