Jay: Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall from my tourism industry
days-Hotel people work on Average Daily Rate. Some people walk in the
door and pay your Rack Rate, some pay Corporate Rate, some have a AAA card
discount, some have Government Rate. And it all averages out to your
Average Daily Rate. In the Airline biz they have Revenue Per Seat Mile.
Some pay First Class, some are coach, a few got a package, some purchased
through a consolidator, and some bought the ticket on Priceline. The bean
counters in Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, and Atlanta crunch the numbers
and voila!
- - -
Al Gilson
Skyhawk N3082U
KSFF Spokane, WA



In article fIspd.85397$V41.82999@attbi_s52, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

Here's a mystery that I just cannot answer:

To fly to Las Vegas from Chicago costs $99.00. (For example.)

To fly to Cedar Rapids from Chicago costs $300.

Naturally, at that price practically no one flies on that plane into Cedar
Rapids.

Question: WHY do the airlines that fly into Cedar Rapids insist on flying
back and forth with mostly empty planes? Would it not make sense, say, 30
minutes before departure, to drop the price until the plane was full? This
is basic "Econ 101" -- if empty, lower the price until demand matches
supply.

Their actions seem to defy logic. In the lodging industry, you're going to
find rooms are discounted much more aggressively after 10 PM than they are
at 3 PM, simply because no innkeeper wants to sit empty, and the odds of
being able to charge full-rate at that time of day are slim. Yet no airline
seems to do it this way, at least on the short hops.

If it were MY airline, I'd sure as hell rather make a hundred bucks than
nothing!

There must be something else in play here -- anyone know?

--
Al Gilson
Spokane, WA USA
1970 VW Convertible
1964 Cessna Skyhawk