4 Comments »

1. Ugh.

   Comment by bryan SFO — September 17, 2008 @ 12:16 pm

2. Oh yeah; I would definitely use an auction site; don’t we all look for cheap stuff on e-bay that we would love to have but that no-one else wants?

   What’s so different about flights? They have become a commodity just like everything else.

   I am in Europe; and although I am sure that the airlines have spent millions working out just when to send an aeroplane from the US to here (and have it as full as possible) and then send it back the other way (also as full as possible), I bet they don’t always get it right: and so there must be seats that are empty that they could have filled, even at a low price.

   But didn’t they used to do this and call it “turning up on standby”? I remember arriving at London Heathrow and paying not very much to get a seat to New York; you knew you would get there eventually, but there was no guarantee of airline you would fly with, which NYC airport you would fly to, or what time you would fly; you just had to sit and wait until you were called. “Lastminute.com” made a killing initially based around this whole idea.

   I suppose that security considerations mean that they don’t really want hundreds of economically challenged people huddling in the aiport waiting for flights; and perhaps entrance into the U.S. requires more time for processing; but I never really did discover why this stopped. Were too many people simply waiting until the last minute to book, thus screwing up the airline’s forecasting of advanced bookings?

   If airlines feel that they can sell a seat for something instead of having it empty, then I suppose they might think it worthwhile. I know that I might be a bit p*ssed if I had paid 500 for my seat, and the person sitting next to me paid a lot less. But if you’ve got to travel, then you have to pay the fare: if I didn’t have the flexibility to book at the last minute (and the risk that there might not be any seats left and I might not travel at all), then it’s a different story.

   I’ve already booked flights to Florida for Easter next year. Why so far ahead? Because I have a wife (who likes to plan things), two kids (who would definitely not like to risk not going to Disney) and we are renting a house; not surprisingly, the owners of that house were quite keen that we should state the dates we were going to be there, not just “somewhen in late March or early April for between 7 and 10 days, depending on what last-minute flights we can get at auction; we’ll let you know a couple of days in advance.”.

   So I paid my money and took my choice; but, airline collapses notwithstanding, I know that I will be on a Virgin 747 on a specific date in March 2009; on this occasion, I wouldn’t have risked waiting for an auction!

   Nick.

   Comment by Nick Tier — September 18, 2008 @ 5:13 am

3. This just seems like a marketing gimmick. It’s a little amusing to think how much jetBlue is investing in sophisticated yield management software to end up outsourcing a portion of it to eBay!

   Comment by Joe Rinaldi — September 18, 2008 @ 8:55 am

4. I would definately look at an auction website for “last-minute flights”, as more often than not I don’t know until the last minute if I can go or not. A website like this would be too good to miss in my opinion and its giving the airline a little instead of nothing. Works well both ways!

   Comment by Janet Kent — October 18, 2008 @ 9:41 am

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