Consumers can be forgiven for being mystified by airfares these days. Just after the airlines added holiday surcharges of up to $50 for certain days, the airlines announced the suspension of advanced-purchase requirements for the same holiday period.
One day, the airlines are socking it to passengers for what might be an additional $100 per round trip. According to Bestfares.com the next day some airfares being slashed in one case, between Atlanta and Seattle, from $1,198 to $258. Another example was a round-trip ticket between Dallas and New York City that was cut 79 percent to $388 from $1,858.
I’m sure from some airfare yield-management guru’s point of view it makes perfect sense. To passengers, it is simply frustrating and irritating, especially if a passenger just purchased an air ticket for $1,198 or $1,858.
Outside of the holiday season, using www.yapta.com, a website that tracks ticket prices, I discovered the price for my January 16th round-trip Washington-Reagan/Albuquerque flight dropped from $415.90 to $190.90 overnight Friday.
I just had lunch with an airline association public relations director who asked me, “Why do people tend to treat airlines different than other businesses?”
This example of the airlines treating their customers with this kind of wild and seemingly reckless airfare swings might just be one of the reasons that passengers feel mistreated.
Imagine if a grocery store changed their prices for steak, baked beans, potato chips, butter, milk, chicken, etc. for each customer based on a random algorithm that rewarded some and penalized others.
Or, what if Pizza Hut and Domino’s took your order at noon for pizza priced at $10 but upon delivery at 12:45 p.m. notified you that the price had increased to $15. When you protested, the pizza company noted that their contract of pizza, available on their website, clearly states that the prices “are not guaranteed until a pizza is purchased.”
Photo: Bestfares.com.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
