Even the same flight going up and down confuses me. I can understand the price raising as demand for that particular flight goes up, (even though that’s a dumb system) but why would it go back down?
In: 5
This is a tough one to EL5, but I’ll give it a shot as I was a travel agent and worked for several airlines in the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
The total # of seats on the plane are divided into “fare basis codes”. That’s a code that dictates what the requirement is to qualify for a specific price and there are a certain number of tickets sold at each price. There are lots of different details, like 7/14/21 day advanced purchase, but also some really obscure things like making sure you stay at your destination over a Saturday night rather returning on Or before Saturday (this is called an excursion fare).
At the end of the day, there are limited seats on the plane. The airlines need to sell $X worth to make money on that flight, so it’s a mix of incentivizing the customer, being affordable, and making sure they are expensive enough to pay for fuel and crew.
Edit: to all the people saying the seat gets cheaper right up until the flight takes off, you’re 100% wrong. Perhaps in extremely rare cases this can happen, it usually doesn’t. There are a lot least a half dozen reasons why, but the gist is simple: an airline will optimize passengers across their schedule by cancelling/redirecting flights. That’s why “flight changes” occur all the time. Oh look, suddenly you’re connecting through DEN instead of a non-stop to your destination. That non-stop got cancelled and they used their hub city to fill the incoming and outgoing flights. Also, airlines utilize their open seats to move crew around and as a perk for being an employee. They can “jump seat” anywhere in the US for a minimal amount if there is an open seat.
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