Revenue management update - preliminary information

[bdnascar3]

Sorry I disagree, different airlines charge different prices to attract the pax and should be kept secret because it would generate price wars. The bigger players could afford to undercut the little guy that is struggling for every dollar, which, in my opinion, is so wrong 

Nothing's stopping them from doing that now, you just don't know or see it.

[Solemus]

Nothing's stopping them from doing that now, you just don't know or see it.

So true 

[LemonButt]

If you guys read/understood what I wrote, how much your competition is charging is largely irrelevant.  For example, IRL an airline might charge $400 for a seat, but in reality they are charging $400 this moment and based on many factors the price changes (this is what revenue management is).

So in the end, your competitor doesn't have a "price" to see, but a mish mash of different prices which results in an average price.  Thus, if you can see the competition's average price you can get an estimate of what they are charging, but you have no idea if an average price of $400 means that half the people are paying $100/$700 or $300/$500.

The whole concept is the price of a single seat doesn't matter--it's the revenue you can generate for a flight.  That's (partially) why some seats are $100 when you book months ahead and buying the same ticket the day of the flight is $700.

[chris.abrams67]

Whether you see an absolute price or a representation of what the competition is charging,  "price management"  is a pretty blunt stick,  or more accurately,  it is akin to playing chess and only seeing your own pieces,  if you can't  see your prices in relationship to the competition. Managing the revenue per flight is a part of the story,  but managing a competive situation is the greater part.

So,  yes,  I could just about understand what you were saying

I would go so far as to say there is no point going to all the trouble to add this aspect to the game if you can't see your competitors prices,  we might as well stick with the current situation.

And all airlines can tell you what other airlines are charging for any seat on any given day for any given flight up to six months before that flight takes place. And predict what they will  be charging off into the future.

Some colleagues and I,  and we're not specifically in the industry,  developed an app,  basically simple Web scraper,  to  bench mark ticket prices on popular business routes and times,  including low cost airlines,  to predict the best time  before a flight to book tickets. We spoke to a company who do the same for airports to help manage slot prices and marketing of slots to airlines,  and they did it on virtually all routes into, intra and out of the UK.

[LemonButt]

Additional comments on pricing and limitations of the current system here: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,54797.0.html

[Andre]

I agree what ellandrd said about prices, we need to see what the competitor is charging, even if it's an average price of their price profile/strategy. I understand what LemonButt is saying, but not having a clue about the competition's prices is not only very unrealistic, but it removes a very key element of the game and makes the whole price profile thing irrelevant. I would really love to see this Revenue Manement update thing go through with the addition of being able to see the competitor's price in some form.

And this was a comment to this update, not to the current pricing system.

[lawrenn2]

Was this change ever implemented?  I am unable to find it.

If not, is there anyway to select multiple selected routes and change ticket prices.

Any help appreciated

[knobbygb]

Wow I hadn't previously seen this six year old post, despite having been around for much longer.  Am I the only one that read the whole topic and thought FINALLY, we're getting some proper price management tools, only to be utterly disappointed?

What happened with this idea?  Why did it 'go away'?