On The Whole, They'd Rather Fly From Philadelphia

[whlinder]

Because WN highest fare is $299, $598 RT. Until U limits its highest OW fare to $299 you will be comparing apples to oranges

[post="255444"][/post]​

Well we could compare the lowest WN to the lowest US, or the highest WN to the highest US, or compare fares that are both $299. But instead he compared a heavily restricted US instant purchase special fare with WN's least restrictive fare. Is that a fair comparison?

 

[mrman]

Well we could compare the lowest WN to the lowest US, or the highest WN to the highest US, or compare fares that are both $299.  But instead he compared a heavily restricted US instant purchase special fare with WN's least restrictive fare.  Is that a fair comparison?

[post="255457"][/post]​

No more "fair" than U charging $1200 PHL-PIT walkup before WN came 😛

 

[BoeingBoy]

Not exactly. The purpose of yield management is to maximize RASM. One possible strategy for achieving that goal is selling fewer low fare seats. However, that is far from the only strategy.

[post="255454"][/post]​

Very true, Michael. But the point I was getting at (badly) is that having to sell lots of low fare seats because not enough people are paying higher fares (thus U having lower fares than WN a good part of the time) is not by definition a failure of yield management. Call it a failure of marketing, a failure to meet customer expectations, a failure of the pricing model, whatever, but to me it's not a failure of yield management.

Jim

 

[mweiss]

Well we could compare the lowest WN to the lowest US, or the highest WN to the highest US, or compare fares that are both $299. But instead he compared a heavily restricted US instant purchase special fare with WN's least restrictive fare. Is that a fair comparison?

[post="255457"][/post]​

I suppose that a "fair" comparison would have to involve a number of factors. For example, the "typical" profile of someone who is purchasing an airline ticket is as follows:

• The person looks online at one of the CRS front-ends for a ticket to fly a particular route in a particular time window.
• The CRS responds with a number of choices at different times, served by different airlines, at different fares.
• The customer chooses a ticket based on a number of factors, including price.

Given this profile, the "fair" comparison is the quoted price. Most customers don't look at the restrictions at the time of purchase (though they should).

Of course, there are plenty of other axes on which one could make a comparison.

 

[whlinder]

My whole 'fair' posts were in regard to how Piney was comparing the fare rules to a US fare with the rules to a WN fare. The US fare was quite restricted while the WN fare was their least restrictive, so in my mind the comparison was slanted toward WN. (Not that WN wouldn't still be simpler comparing the rules of restricted tickets or the rules of unrestricted tickets.) I didn't realize at the time that the only available fare in the market he looked at was WN's fully-refundable fare. In that regard, I do believe comparing the rules between the two is 'fair'.

But like I wrote out in detail early in this thread, it is the way the rules are presented. Just like the FlyI fare rules I posted earlier in the thread. Can a layperson understand those?

 

[JS]

I think the problem is usairways.com, not US Airways. The underlying fare rules are all basically the same, but a web site, similar to a reservations agent, can either translate them into laymen's terms, or just hand you the text word-for-word, which doesn't help the average consumer.