This is somethingw e have touched on before here:
http://www.travelblog.co.za/travel/my-agent-says-the-flight-is-full/
However as w are in peak season we encountered many questions as to why the fare levels are different. Airlines have a system in place that is called yield management. This is for the airlines to maximize their earning potential on flights. So in a nut shell they want to fill up their planes with the best possible paying passengers. Hence airlines only opened up full Y class for world cup 2010. So they anticipated fill their planes with the highest possible paying passengers. So what happens is the airline has various fare levels, each fare level is governed by a fare basis – this fare basis attaches the fare notes and rules to a particular fare or fare level. Here is a display from an airline showing availability from the cheapest fare upwards – note the fare basis:
As you can see from the above – certain rules and booking classes show various fares and immediately various rules, ie minimum stay at destination can be 6 days or less. Also notice the NRF attached – this means that the fare has cancellation fees attached to it and in some cases the ticket is non refundable.
Now that we have a basic understanding of fares lets have a look at availability:
And have a look here when it is really busy:
And now when the flights are not busy at all – wil almost full availability:
So when you are told this is the cheapest available fare you have some understanding as to why.
