If you are planning a trip somewhere, you could easily drive your car, take the
bus, hop on the train, or take a most...but most people like to fly. Airplanes give us the
ability to travel long distances in only a fraction of the time it would take by any other
form of transportation.
The costs of air travel is ever increasing and decreasing in line with the supply
and demand. Americans love to travel, as is proved by the massive crowds ion the
airports. Airline passengers may eat the same meals and arrive at the same destination,
but they will probably pay a different amount for their domestic flight to the people
sitting in the same cabin.
Air fares are determined by managing the "mix" of tickets - which can vary by the
price and the conditions - a process that creates countless ticketing options on any given
flight. I can easily understand how people get confused about it, but on the other hand,
those people are paying the extra price for that flexibility.
Conditions relating to the flexibility of tickets, particularly the ability to change or
cancel them, affects their price. Generally, most airlines try to encourage booking your
ticket early by providing and implementing discount fares with restricted flexibility, with
a mix of higher fares that have more options.
The closer you get to your departure date; airlines tend to alter this "mix" as they
Try to 'wring' the most value out of the fixed number of seats leaving the ground.
The Australian airline, Qantas has four fare "families" and each "family" has several
levels. "Every flight we operate from Melbourne to Sydney has a mix of all of
those fares," said Will Owens, head of domestic pricing and yield for Qantas (The Age,
pg. 1). This...