Consumer’s Fair Game in Fare Wars
Seats are limited are often the three most misleading words for airline passengers.
Almost anyone trying to reserve discount-fare airline seats these days has come face to face with the reality of how limited these seats can be.
Back on Jan. 29, Continental Airlines fired the latest salvo in the discount air-fare wars when it announced its Maxsaver fares.
Extraordinarily cheap, nonrefundable tickets were on sale to anywhere Continental flew in the United States (except Hawaii). All that was required was that passengers make their reservations at least two days ahead and stay over a Saturday night.
Other airlines rushed to match the fares. It all sounded great. But alas, seats were “limited.”
Many people who called to reserve their discount seats on United, Pan Am, American and other airlines quickly discovered that the fares advertised were simply not available for the flights they wanted.
How available are the heavily promoted Maxsaver fares?
Notorious Fare War
This is not the first time that such fare promotion availabilities have been questioned. Last year in Denver there was a notorious airline fare war. At one point, Frontier Airlines lowered its fare between Denver and Colorado Springs to $9. The airline also slashed fares between Denver and Albuquerque to $19 and to Los Angeles the fare was dropped to $39. Other airlines rushed to match the fares.
Seats were “limited.” As it turned out, the word limited had been redefined. The fares were not only hard to believe, they were almost impossible to get.
Lots of folks in Denver tried to get seats at these fares, only to be told that the fare was no longer available, that seats had been sold out. They started to complain to state consumer affairs officials.
Soon the Colorado state attorney general wrote a letter to each airline offering the fares, demanding to know whether or not these fares existed and, if so, he wanted the airlines to properly identify the exact number of seats available at those fares.
The airlines responded that the fares as well as the seats existed for the discount flights, but balked at the request for them to list numbers of seats available at discount fares.
Capacity Control
The reason: It’s all part of something the airlines like to call capacity control or inventory management--their ability to raise or lower the number of discount seats available on each flight on a daily, sometimes even an hourly basis, depending upon passenger demand.
They also study advance 14-, 30- and 330-day projections of passenger reservations by time of day, day of week and time of year. “As a result,” an airline spokesman says, “it’s no great secret that we have more discount seats on Tuesdays and Wednesdays than we do Fridays at 5 p.m.”
But the real issue is whether or not there are ever any discount seats available on that Friday flight.
Some folks are convinced that those discount seats never existed in the first place.
Recently the Aviation Consumer Action Project (ACAP), a public interest group, petitioned the U.S. Department of Transportation for an immediate directive that would order airlines to establish a certain number of seats it must offer at an advertised price.
ACAP claims that the absence of federal regulations has created a “considerable vacuum” and asked that airlines be required to make at least 10 seats or 10% of the number of seats on a given flight available at advertised levels.
(Under section 411 of the Federal Aviation Administration Act, the Dept. of Transportation can determine whether air fares are offered in an “unfair and deceptive manner” and fine a carrier $1,000 for each violation.)
For Stiff Regulation
But Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee, wants a stiffer regulation. “If an airline is going to advertise a fare,” he said during Senate aviation hearings, “then to ask them to make at least 10% of the seats available on each flight is an absurdity. It should be higher.”
Now a comprehensive bill just introduced by Metzenbaum attempts to deal with the Maxsaver problem by having the Dept. of Transportation prohibit airlines from advertising a fare for any flight unless at least one-third of the seats will be available at the advertised price. (An airline could still get around the rule if it included a notice in its advertisements that fewer than one-third of the seats on particular flights were available.)
One airline, Sunworld, quickly announced that it will offer a minimum of 15% of seats on each of its flights as discount seats. But Sunworld is the only airline to respond to ACAP’s petition or to Metzenbaum’s proposed legislation. At this writing, there are no firm assurances from any other airlines that they will allocate a specific percentage of Maxsaver-type seats on each flight.
And so, in the near future, it looks as if the game of capacity controls will continue without effective regulation.
“Everyone tries to control their capacity,” another airline’s marketing chief says. “You are constantly looking at the market, the day of the week and the flight. And then you adjust. Every carrier does it, but because we don’t know what every other carrier is doing, or how many discount seats they’re offering, this floating inventory becomes a crap shoot for the passengers--and for us.”
“Capacity control in selling seats has become almost a science,” one airline spokesman says. “A few years ago it was barely an art.”
Rule of No Rules
But when it comes to the art of buying a discount seat, the only rule is that there may be no rules at all. The level of available discount seats on each flight rises and falls based on demand reflected in an airline’s computers, so don’t just take “I’m sorry, that fare is sold out” as the final answer. It’s very possible that the special “Q” fare you wanted for that flight next month that wasn’t available yesterday may very well be available today.
As long as you’re within the usual advance-purchase time restrictions, it can often pay to keep calling the airline.
“In the old days,” one travel agent says, “a seat would only open up if someone had canceled. Today, seats suddenly open up when higher fares don’t book.”
Thus, when it comes to capacity controls and the limiting of seats, don’t take no for an answer unless, and until, you simply run out of time.
At this writing, despite an earlier announcement that Maxsaver and similar fare deals would expire on May 20, there are hints that some airlines may extend the fare program.
Phil Bakkes, president of Continental Airlines, recently said the carrier is considering selling the Maxsaver tickets--or some variation of the fares--through the summer months.
Search for Seats
That may be good news to those intrepid folks who like maintaining a regular telephone relationship with airline reservation agents in desperate searches for the elusive Maxsaver seats.
But for those tired of hearing that the discount seat they want is still unavailable, there may be hope--at the supermarket, of all places.
In a limited promotion with groceries in Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Rhode Island, Continental and New York Air are hawking discount travel certificates. After you buy at least $89 in groceries, the airlines will sell you a coupon for $89. It’s good for a one-way flight anywhere these airlines go in the continental U.S.
Most Attractive Aspects
Perhaps the most attractive aspect of these coupons is that they don’t have the Maxsaver restrictions. You can make reservations as few as seven days in advance, and you can also change your reservations without penalty.
If you don’t live in any of the five states involved in the promotion, don’t worry. You can still get the deal. The coupons are transferable. Thus, all you need to do is find a friend or relative in one of those states who is in need of at least $89 worth of groceries.
