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"The airline industry’s airfare voilàtily
makes the volatility of the stock market look placid."
- Matthew Bennett
Remember, back at the turn of this millennium, those high fares? (There was no JetBlue driving them down.) Chicago-New York for $1800. That kind of thing.
Accordingly, First Class was always pretty much full.
Of empty seats. (For "elite upgrade strategy" flyers.)
But coach, business-traveler fares were sky high despite all the competition — six airlines — and those empty First Class seats allowed airlines to compete. A free upgrade to First was the way to woo a corporate customer and compete for the corporate account.
Then someone said ‘why don’t we sell what we give away?”.
Unbundling was born and everything had a price: extra baggage, meals, entertainment and of course upgrades.
First Class Experiments
Now there’s the experimental-fare fixation. Technology facilitates this.
“Let’s see what happens with a really high fare on a route we own.” Voilà, really high fare.
“Look, here’s a route owned by a competitor who’s gouging their loyal customers. How low do we have to go to poach them?” Voilà, really low fare.
Voilàtily.
It’s the order of the day. Or disorder. The airline industry’s voilàtily makes the volatility of the stock market look placid. Imagine milk suddenly at a fraction of the cost it was yesterday. Or a new car.
The airficionado thinks not just of the three dominant airlines but three kinds of passengers: the chump who pays the high experimental price, those few who pay the low experimental price and all the others who pay the “right” price.
We study the trends and report to you, so you can be… one of the few.
Thus, ‘upportunities’ abound as airlines post—but never promote—silly fares to see what happens. Or realize they have routes or flights that will put egg on their proud faces. (Passengers love seeing empty seats on an aircraft, airlines hate seeing just one empty seat.)
The resultant volatility of the airline industry these days makes the stock market seem tame. Imagine a random, desirable stock that more than halved in price for a few weeks, or days, or even hours while all around it stayed steady.
Business Class fares can be found, if you make a full-time job of looking, that are so bizarrely close to economy (sometimes) they represent an upgrade opportunity in themselves. First Class fares can be at such near parity to Business Class they make a mockery of elite status and the pick-me hopes of loyal customers.
The more attuned you are to the trends, the more you will fly First Class and Business Class for a song. Make sure you get our alerts.
Explore Domestic Micro-Trends on Your Favorite Airline...
American Airlines swallowed US Airways and while the Texan python has grown stronger the digestive process continues.
Moody and slow to move, that’s our biggest airline. And yet American is surprisingly erratic… when it comes to setting fares. FCF researchers often discover American’s First Class for little more than Business. Some months ago First Class was a crazy $2 more. Then, suddenly, it’s back up to $800 more. American has grown to be consistently inconsistent with its fares. It’s typically the highest of the three but redeems itself by sometimes being the lowest.
So, the inventor so long ago of loyalty programs American is happy these days to lie low. No sudden moves that might scare customers. Happy to patiently to see what Delta’s carefree innovation brings (after United has adopted it).
Conventional wisdom says American is still finding its feet after the takeover. But pythons don’t have feet. Lying in wait is part of its new DNA. To members alert to our alerts, the merger upheaval delivers upgrades.
Just be prepared to strike, because they don’t stay around for long.
“Delta” before a star’s designation generally signifies that it’s fourth brightest in the constellation.
Tell that to Delta Air Lines.
This is the brightest star by far in the three-star constellation that is the U.S. domestics, and it plans to stay that way. (Although its trend away from transparency might thwart that plan.)
Delta outshines American and United by virtue of its sheer energy, plus a certain brilliance displayed by its management team.
That team’s brilliant at being innovative and fleet-footed relative to Delta’s less-aggressive competition. It’s brilliant at cultivating change within the organization; change that soon becomes change within the industry. It’s brilliant at being unsentimental (if you call that brilliant) when it comes to their most loyal customers whose benefits are being recycled into cheaper fares for all.
Delta is hot, white hot, and when we alert you to a low fare, chances are it’s a Delta fare on domestic routes.
United is the cat. The copy cat. But a fast and nimble copy cat. As soon as Delta does it United does it. United can be impressively aggressive in her own right, especially in a competitor’s territory.
Take Phoenix for example. There, the market’s owned by American, and we sometimes see the United product priced with what seems like reckless abandon. Or a careless mistake. But it rarely is. (And our policy is never to alert members to mistake fares, we aim to beat the system not cheat the system.)
These make-the-market-leader-look-silly fares are standard practice for all three airlines and United, with her copy-cat capacity and self-generated aggression, makes the airline especially one to study closely. (Not you, us.) Long gone are the days when fares changed every six months, now it’s weekly and daily as each airline in its own way and out of its own territory experiments with fares to increase share.
Catching United’s and Delta’s and American’s experiments, and alerting FCF members to them is FCF’s mission.
Be in the know with exclusive FCF Domestic Fare reports...
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The New York Times
Lawrence Pass, MD
Prof. Michael Beckerman
Departures Magazine
Kiplinger's
Chicago Tribune
Newsweek
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Prof. Thomas Y. Levin
New York Times
Bud Collins
The Wall Street Journal
Paul Haggis
Condé Nast Traveler
Los Angeles Times
Ari Fleischer
Press Secretary;
Fleischer Sports CEO
Four Seasons Resorts Magazine
Paul Haggis
Prof. Thomas Y. Levin
Bud Collins
Lawrence Pass, MD
The Wall Street Journal
New York Times
Condé Nast Traveler
Los Angeles Times
Ari Fleischer
Press Secretary;
Fleischer Sports CEO
Four Seasons Resorts Magazine
Tod Cohen
The New York Times
Departures Magazine
Prof. Michael Beckerman
Kiplinger's
Chicago Tribune
Newsweek
Entrepreneur Magazine