Less than 3 decades ago, all schaduled flights had pricing controlled by IATA {International Air Travel Association] which calculated the price of a fare according to the milaege. Only that was not as straight forward as it seems for airlines were penalised if a passenger could get a cheaper price for the same fare elsewhere, touph business if they had to calculate a round the world trip with multiple stops. That posed a problem for if you had a passanger wanting, for example 3 stops en a simpler route, you couldn't just add the price of point A - B to B - C and so on because that would've been far too expensive, hence, when you purchased a ticket, say London to New York, the milaege allowed for approx 15% extra, thus allowing you a stop in Paris for example. But then, if you wanted to go to Athens afterwards, back to Paris, then on to NYC, the fare became a nightmare to calculate, as routes needed cutting into sectors and ficticeous points had to be imagined etc, etc, so can you imagine a round the world trip with say 20 points?! To do these tough calculations in the absence of computers then, all this had to be done manually using bigger than the yellow pages fare calculation manuals and calculation guidance notes too and one had to pass the BOAC [Currently British Airways] ticketing exams. Those started at basic and went up to level 7 ... you were very much sought after by top international airlines if you had a level 2 certificate! It was common knowlege that there were only a handful of experts around the world who had a level 7 certificate! But those fare calculation depts were huge because of the fear of IATA and that put a big cost on the price of your ticket. Then IAta relaxed a bit and there were all the APEX, etc fares which restricted your journey one way or the other ...
Now, with IATA near to total relaxation, cut throat price wars are here. So, believe it when an airline says it's 50p per ticket because thats all they are really getting! They do it because if the flight is taking off anyway, as they are schaduled so are not allowed to cancel, better use the empty seats to advertise the business by forming passenger habit and selling cheap. Otherwise, they earn their living from the business traveller and holiday makers in the peak seasons ... and a little from the bits and pieces on the side!
With that carbon print business, the price of fuel and other costs rising so fast, I can't see that trend continuing though, so use it while you can Julie :-)
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Less than 3 decades ago, all schaduled flights had pricing controlled by IATA {International Air Travel Association] which calculated the price of a fare according to the milaege. Only that was not as straight forward as it seems for airlines were penalised if a passenger could get a cheaper price for the same fare elsewhere, touph business if they had to calculate a round the world trip with multiple stops. That posed a problem for if you had a passanger wanting, for example 3 stops en a simpler route, you couldn't just add the price of point A - B to B - C and so on because that would've been far too expensive, hence, when you purchased a ticket, say London to New York, the milaege allowed for approx 15% extra, thus allowing you a stop in Paris for example. But then, if you wanted to go to Athens afterwards, back to Paris, then on to NYC, the fare became a nightmare to calculate, as routes needed cutting into sectors and ficticeous points had to be imagined etc, etc, so can you imagine a round the world trip with say 20 points?!
To do these tough calculations in the absence of computers then, all this had to be done manually using bigger than the yellow pages fare calculation manuals and calculation guidance notes too and one had to pass the BOAC [Currently British Airways] ticketing exams. Those started at basic and went up to level 7 ... you were very much sought after by top international airlines if you had a level 2 certificate! It was common knowlege that there were only a handful of experts around the world who had a level 7 certificate! But those fare calculation depts were huge because of the fear of IATA and that put a big cost on the price of your ticket. Then IAta relaxed a bit and there were all the APEX, etc fares which restricted your journey one way or the other ...
Now, with IATA near to total relaxation, cut throat price wars are here. So, believe it when an airline says it's 50p per ticket because thats all they are really getting! They do it because if the flight is taking off anyway, as they are schaduled so are not allowed to cancel, better use the empty seats to advertise the business by forming passenger habit and selling cheap. Otherwise, they earn their living from the business traveller and holiday makers in the peak seasons ... and a little from the bits and pieces on the side!
With that carbon print business, the price of fuel and other costs rising so fast, I can't see that trend continuing though, so use it while you can Julie :-)
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