#FlightPricing #AirlineTicket #LastMinuteBooking #TravelDeals
Have you ever noticed that the price of a flight seems to skyrocket as you get closer to the departure date? It’s a frustrating phenomenon that leaves many travelers scratching their heads and wondering why it happens. In this article, we’ll explore the reasons behind this pricing trend and give you some tips for finding the best deals on last-minute flights.
##Why do flights go up in price the closer it gets to its departure?
There are a few factors that contribute to the increase in flight prices as the departure date approaches:
###1. Supply and demand
When it comes to airline tickets, the laws of supply and demand are in full effect. As the departure date gets closer, the number of available seats on a flight decreases, and the demand for those remaining seats tends to increase. This puts airlines in a position of power, allowing them to raise prices to capitalize on the limited supply and high demand.
###2. Revenue management
Airlines employ sophisticated revenue management systems that allow them to adjust prices based on a variety of factors, including historical booking patterns, competitor pricing, and current demand. These systems are designed to maximize revenue for the airline, and they often result in higher prices for last-minute bookings.
###3. Cost of last-minute travel
Booking a flight at the last minute can be a costly endeavor for both the traveler and the airline. From the traveler’s perspective, last-minute flights are often a necessity rather than a choice, and airlines know that passengers are more willing to pay a premium for the convenience of booking a flight close to the departure date. On the airline’s side, last-minute flights can result in additional costs for things like reorganizing flight schedules, staffing, and airport operations.
###4. Limited availability of fare classes
As the departure date approaches, the availability of cheaper fare classes tends to dwindle. This means that travelers who wait until the last minute to book their flights are often left with only the most expensive fare options, further driving up the overall cost of the flight.
##How to find the best deals on last-minute flights
Despite the factors that drive up the cost of last-minute flights, there are still ways to find good deals if you need to book a flight at the eleventh hour. Here are some tips to help you secure a more affordable last-minute ticket:
###1. Be flexible with your travel dates and times
Flexibility is key when it comes to finding deals on last-minute flights. If you can be open to traveling at off-peak times or on days when demand is lower, you’ll have a better chance of snagging a more affordable ticket.
###2. Sign up for fare alerts
There are many websites and apps that offer fare alerts for last-minute flights. Signing up for these alerts can help you stay informed about any sudden drops in prices for flights to your desired destination.
###3. Consider alternative airports
If you’re willing to be a bit adventurous, you may find cheaper last-minute flights by considering alternative airports near your origin or destination. Flying into a smaller, less busy airport can sometimes result in significant savings.
###4. Use airline miles or points
If you’re a frequent flyer or a member of a loyalty program, now may be the time to cash in some of your airline miles or points. Many airlines offer last-minute award seat availability, which can be an excellent way to save money on a short-notice flight.
###5. Monitor flash sales and promotions
Keep an eye out for flash sales and last-minute promotions from airlines and travel agencies. These sales can offer significant discounts on last-minute flights, but they often have limited availability and short booking windows, so you’ll need to act fast.
In conclusion, the increase in flight prices as the departure date approaches is a result of several factors, including supply and demand, revenue management systems, the cost of last-minute travel, and limited availability of fare classes. While last-minute flights can be expensive, there are still ways to find good deals by being flexible, using fare alerts, considering alternative airports, using airline miles or points, and monitoring flash sales and promotions. By keeping these tips in mind, you can increase your chances of finding an affordable ticket for your next last-minute trip. Happy travels! 🛫✈️
Capitalism. Majority of people that book a last minute flight have to be somewhere fast. Airlines know this. Airlines charge more because they know people will pay.
They want to maximize profit. And the most profitable tickets are the absolute full fare ones bought at the last minute by people who don’t care what it costs because they have to travel *now*.
So they’re doing a delicate dance holding just enough seats open to capture those very lucrative last minute travelers while filling the whole airplane (because the profit of the seat instantly becomes zero when the flight closes).
This is the responsibility of a chunk of the airline called “revenue management”. And they tend to be very very good at what they do.
They’re assuming (correctly) that people with low willingness to pay will book early and take unfavorable routings and times…as the flight gets closer those people have already purchased. The only ones left are those with less flexibility and higher willingness to pay, so they raise the price to match.
Let’s say you need a flight 3 months from now, there’s a limit on what you’re willing to pay, as you can shop around cause you have time. Now let’s say you wait too long and now you need a flight in 3 hours, you have no time to shop around and will pay any amount cause you NEED the flight. Airlines know this, so they can charge much higher as the only people who will be buying last minute are people desperate for a ticket
It’s basically taking advantage of necessity. People who are booking immediate flights either absolutely have to get where they are going now or are affluent enough to take trips on a whim. Either way, they capitalize on this necessity. It’s basically “you need this. I have this. You’re going to pay my price if you want it “
last minute travelers tend to be either flying for business or flying in an emergency. Both types of people are less likely to be bothered by higher prices
If flights went down in price the closer to the departure, people would all wait to book… your premise is basically “why don’t airlines create a deflation insentive?”
In addition to what the others have said here it’s basic supply and demand. There are fewer remaining seats for the flight, so less supply, so if the demand stays high the price will increase.
Because more people NEED to fly last minute to the point they’ll pay whatever. Let’s say it’s a few days before a flight takes off and tickets have been $200 each. It might make sense to sell them for $100 or $50 each as something is better than nothing. But if they jump the price to $800 and one person buys a ticket cause of a last minute business trip, they’ve just made a lot more. So much more that it’s even worth it to fly planes with empty seats occasionally cause when they do sell the seats they make more than enough to cover it.
They also use tons of algorithms to have a very good guess of what flights are going to fill up and what flights will have last minute ticket purchases.
Because airlines want to maximize profit and that means that ideally for them, they’ll have as many flights as humanly possible which are all full. It’s much easier for airlines to plan out their flight schedule if they know how many people will be on the flight as early as possible, so they encourage people to book early by making it cheaper and penalizing them for not doing so because it’s easy money.
People who are travelling for leisure are extremely price sensitive, but they plan their trips weeks in advance. The airlines lower the price at this time, and they have an idea for how many people will be travelling.
People who travel on very little notice tend to be travelling for business, or for some other emergency reasons that make price a secondary factor. They will pay the higher fare because the immediate availability is worth something.
This isn’t always true though. I thought it was. Checked flights a year out from a vacation. For the four of us round trip it was gonna be $2k. We decided we’d most likely just rent a car and drive. Checked a few months out from the vacation. $800. Two weeks later $600. The next day I went to the airport to buy the tickets because that was a reasonable price and you bypass fees by paying in person. Got to the airport and the tickets were $275 total.
Imagine you’re a collector of some item (Funko Pops, Pez dispensers, coins, action figures, etc.).
You start off by collecting the easiest items; the largely available ones. They’re the cheapest and most obtainable ones. As you keep collecting, you find yourself spending more money as the items you seek are the rarer ones. When you have almost a full collection and there are very few left, the remaining items are very hard to get: many they’re a misprint, or a limited edition, or a defect, or a recall. They are very expensive to collect. You didn’t choose the collect these ultra-expensive ones last, it just happens that they’re the only ones left.
This is how airline prices work. Within each class (Economy for example), there are various fares (Flexible, Choice, Saver, Community, Sale, etc.). Even though you’re all buying Economy Class tickets, the airline will always sell the cheapest available tickets first. So all the Sale and Community tickets sell out first in our example. As it draws closer to the flight departure date, more people are buying these cheaper fares, which means that only the more expensive fares are left (Choice and Flexible). Some people seem to think that if you search for airline tickets, the price will go up, but it’s usually because you’ve waited a couple of days and all those cheaper tickets have been sold out.
TL;DR – everyone else has bought all the cheaper tickets for that flight, and only the expensive ones are left.
Anyone who *wanted* to fly on that date / time / destination booked in advance. Generally speaking, the only people who book at the last minute *need* to fly.
No one decides, “let’s go on this vacation tomorrow.” People frequently decide, “I need to be in X city within the next 48 hours, for (urgent matter).”
These people generally don’t care what the price is because they have something important going on that needs to be addressed. A business / family emergency that can’t wait.
What about all the cash they have in advanced bookings?
ELI5 – have you ever went to the mall/shopping on Christmas weekend?
Christmas happens every year. Happens on the same date, it’s not like Thanksgiving where it changes. And it’s also cheaper to buy online, or doing black Friday, or in advance on some other day throughout the year – and yet people still wait last minute to buy gifts.
Why do people wait till last minute? Cause we’re procrastinators! I rarely go shopping in store, I love shopping for deals (i.e. Slickdeals) and yet I literally spent my Saturday looking for parking and waiting in the cashier line trying to buy an overpriced toy.
So airlines (and other industries) know people procrastinate, are impulsive, and have last minute changes to plans – the airline is in the business of making money, so that’s why price goes up. If the price goes down then people would wait last minute to buy, and that’s not good for business.
It’s not to do with how close to the date of the flight. It’s to do with with how many tickets have been sold. Airlines price their flights cheaper when it’s empty, then when they get closer to full capacity ticket prices go up. Supply and demand, it’s the same with hotel prices too.
Simple economics.
Airlines would rather sell one $500 ticket than two tickets for $250. Fewer passengers lower costs, and there’s a chance they might sell both $500 tickets.
Now you’ve rewarding people to buy plane tickets at the last minute. Good luck trying to get a seat in this chaos.
I think people underestimate how much revenue airlines make from business travel. I think it’s like 75%. People traveling on business book very near when they fly. It’s never like “see you in 5 months since the flights are cheap” it’s more like see you on Thursday or even “Be in NY tomorrow”.
Frequent flyer programs are also designed for business travelers. They know their budget is greate than the cost of competitive fares so they want them to keep picking the same airline so you also get a personal kick back (miles) as a business traveler. I.e. the business traveler will spend more of the company’s money to get a fare on their preferred airline since they get FF benefits even though it costs the company more (so long as it’s not toooo much of a price difference).
Airlines resent budget travelers but need them for consistency. They want high budget business travelers more than anyone.
I book last minute flights for cheap by just stumbling on good deals. Though i consider like a month at the most out to be last minute
As a business traveler I can tell you it is definitely for people like me
My planned in advance trips cost probably 50% of what my “oh shit I need to be at X office tomorrow” trips
It’s because planes overbook their flights instead. If they didn’t overbook, then people would cancel their flights and it would result in an empty seat. Those tickets would then have to be discounted in order to fill those seats up immediately.
But if the plane sells more tickets than there are seats on the plane, then a person canceling their ticket doesn’t result in an empty seat.
So there’s your answer. It’s because they don’t need to as they’ve already sold 110% of all the seats at a high price.
Tip: If it’s an extremely early morning flight say 8am, you can usually wake up at 3am and book the flight cheap.
A long time ago, airlines used to do just that. When it got closer to the time for the flight to leave they keep dropping the prices down to be able to sell more tickets. But then they were selling tickets at a loss. Travelers knew this would happen so they would wait till the last minute and gamble to see how cheap they could get their tickets. now the airlines are losing money and it’s unpredictable how many people would actually be on a flight.
Then they decided to switch it around. You offer the flights a little bit cheaper earlier on to get a good estimate of how many people would be taking that flight. Make sure it was going to cover its cost. If the flight was getting full you can ramp up the prices and earn even more money on those people who absolutely needed the flight at the last minute.
If the flight isn’t filling up as much as you want it to you can still lower prices and maybe get a few more people over the edge to purchase tickets.
They carefully calculate to get as much money out of every ticket as possible. The price fluctuates magically with little involvement from humans
To paraphrase Dave Berry. It’s a marvel of modern technology that you can look around at all the passengers on an airplane knowing that no two of them paid the same price.
People who don’t need or want to fly and be somewhere else they dont need or want to be at will still not fly even if you make it very affordable.
But people who really need or want to fly and be somewhere else they really need or want to be will fly even if it costs more.
So airlines charge more.
Not only do they meet an actual demand and match up on the mindset of the flyer, they are also able to recoup more of the cost of flying the plane they’re already paying for anyway with or without the extra seats sold.
demand > supply in this case. If they had more supply than demand they would need to try to reduce the price to sell all their seats.
Air travel works by dynamic pricing. The more seats for a flight sell, the higher the price will go. For airlines, it is even more intricate than just that, potentially taking into account how soon the flight is, time of year, day of the week, which category of seats have sold, etc..
Source: I used to work for WizzAir, a “low cost” airline. The way the system worked, the tickets were divided into a number of price classes. The cheapest tickets were being sold first, well below the cost of flying a person from A to B, but there was only a handful of those on a plane that could take nearly 200 passengers.
Then gradually more expensive tickets would get sold out, resulting in higher price the closer it was to the flight. Last few seats would get riddiculously expensive.
Like others said, this takes advantage of two things: firstly, the airline can claim they offer flights for as little as 10 EUR (sounds nice doesn’t it) , secondly, they can milk last-minute buyers to maximize the profits.
It’s worth noting that this depends on culture, not the laws of economics. When I lived in mainland China in the 2000s, the price of flights went down as the date of departure approached. Most people did not have enough control of their schedules to book in advance; only rich people could do that. So prices started high and then fell.
This is also what people forget when comparing the cost of plane vs train. They’ll look at the most expensive walk up ticket for the train and compare it with a price for a flight booked well in advance.
Because the airline knows that people that want to fly now will pay for it, imagine it like how people would pay extra for convenience.