ELi5 Why do the plane ticket prices differ so much from day to day?
In: 17
Because demand also differs from day to day.
Yes, for large variations in demand it’s possible to do things like offer fewer flights or use smaller aircraft (assuming the airline has that aircraft in its fleet).
But those can only roughly change the amount of seats supplied. The way to fine tune the amount of demand to try to meet the amount of supply, as close as possible, is to charge different prices.
As well as all the other tricks that airlines use to try to determine who is willing to pay more (i.e. business travel usually pays more, and they often buy last minute, plus they don’t really buy very far in advance, plus they don’t usually stay on a weekend).
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