An airfare' (otherwise known as a fare) is the fee paid by a passenger for air transport. It consists of the charge for a passenger to fly from an origin to a destination and includes the conditions, rules, and restrictions for travelling on the airfare.
Airfares are typically made up of fare and rule components that define the airfare product, services, and price and include origin/destination pair, fare class, one-way/round-trip indicator, fare amount, validity dates, mileage, and other rules. [1] To sell the airfares many airlines rely on inventory allocations within finite, alphabetically-defined sub-groups – "inventory buckets" – and fare codes for each fare sold. Airlines have sold airfares in this way since the beginning of commercial air travel and before computer reservations systems existed. As new computerized systems were gradually introduced to the air transport industry in the 1960s, this method of defining airfares and managing them within fare codes was further developed, and usage became widespread.
Evolving business models (such as low-cost carriers]), changing consumer needs, and internet-age technologies such as more flexible shopping and booking technology are allowing airlines to price and distribute their products in new ways.
A fare class (otherwise known as booking class) is an airline industry term that indicates travel class and refers to the quality of seat, cabin, or other characteristics of the class of travel. Fare classes are used by most airline reservations systems and revenue management departments to divide every seat on a plane into different categories, each with its own price and set of rules.
More than 450 airlines publish in excess of more than 100 million airfares through the airline-owned airfare database Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO) for onward distribution to Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) and third-party retailers. [2] ATPCO has been a critical component in airline distribution for more than 50 years. The process of filing fares is manual and requires data entry of fares, fare rules, prices, and taxes into the ATPCO database.
Fare codes (otherwise known as booking codes or reservation booking designators (RBD)) are used in reservation transactions to specify the class of service a passenger should be booked to receive the fare, and functions also as an inventory control code. [3]
Some fare codes are standard across all airlines, while some are very different depending on the airline. For example, a plane may have 25 economy seats still available, and the airline may show them in a reservation system as Y7 K5 M4 T6 E3, which indicates how many of each booking class can be reserved. Agents cannot sell some codes, and those seats may be reserved for international connections, loyalty programs, or airline staff relocation.
Fare codes were defined by IATA, but airlines have deviated from the IATA standard and current booking codes are airline-specific. The same code may have different meanings for tickets issued by different airlines. Many airlines use nearly all letters of the alphabet to support yield management. Certain booking codes have retained the same meaning across most airlines:
Fare Code | Meaning |
---|---|
F | full-fare First class, on airlines with first-class distinct from business class. |
J | full-fare Business class |
W | full-fare Premium economy |
Y | full-fare Economy class |
Fare rules provide the detailed terms, conditions, and services for which fare classes are offered. In the case of pre-filed fares in ATPCO, the fare rule can refer to regulations governing published fares (grouped by categories) or to fares that are contained in the text of a rule (Fare By Rule). [4]
A fare code (or booking code, or reservation booking designator) is identified by one or two letters.
A fare basis code (often just referred to as a fare basis) can be 1-8 alphanumeric characters and is used to determine the price and restrictions on a ticket. Fare basis codes start with a letter called a fare code which almost always matches the booking class in which the reservation is booked.
Example:
Current airline pricing is based on standards based on technology that is more than 50 years old. This technology statically defines products and restricts airlines to 26 price points. The limited number of price points leads to unnecessary price jumps that are not beneficial for either customers or airlines. Many airlines are looking to overcome the disadvantages of current airline pricing and allow more prices to better serve customer demands.
Many airlines are implementing Dynamic Pricing (sometimes referred to as Dynamic Offers). Dynamic pricing is the automatic adjustment of a starting price based on data insights to optimize revenue and customer uptake. Starting price data can come from any number of sources – ranging from Revenue Management (RM) systems to ATPCO filed fares [5]
An example of Dynamic Pricing is "continuous pricing" implemented by Lufthansa Group [6] .
A codeshare agreement, also known simply as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number as part of their published timetable or schedule. Typically, a flight is operated by one airline while seats are sold for the flight by all cooperating airlines using their own designator and flight number.
Yield management (YM) is a variable pricing strategy, based on understanding, anticipating and influencing consumer behavior in order to maximize revenue or profits from a fixed, time-limited resource. As a specific, inventory-focused branch of revenue management, yield management involves strategic control of inventory to sell the right product to the right customer at the right time for the right price. This process can result in price discrimination, in which customers consuming identical goods or services are charged different prices. Yield management is a large revenue generator for several major industries; Robert Crandall, former Chairman and CEO of American Airlines, gave yield management its name and has called it "the single most important technical development in transportation management since we entered deregulation."
Computer reservation systems, or central reservation systems (CRS), are computerized systems used to store and retrieve information and conduct transactions related to air travel, hotels, car rental, or other activities. Originally designed and operated by airlines, CRSs were later extended for use by travel agencies, and global distribution systems (GDSs) to book and sell tickets for multiple airlines. Most airlines have outsourced their CRSs to GDS companies, which also enable consumer access through Internet gateways.
Sabre Global Distribution System, owned by Sabre Corporation, is a travel reservation system used by travel agents and companies to search, price, book, and ticket travel services provided by airlines, hotels, car rental companies, rail providers and tour operators. Originally developed by American Airlines under CEO C.R. Smith with the assistance of IBM in 1960, the booking service became available for use by external travel agents in 1976 and became independent of the airline in March 2000.
A passenger name record (PNR) is a record in the database of a computer reservation system (CRS) that contains the itinerary for a passenger or a group of passengers travelling together. The concept of a PNR was first introduced by airlines that needed to exchange reservation information in case passengers required flights of multiple airlines to reach their destination ("interlining"). For this purpose, IATA and ATA have defined standards for interline messaging of PNR and other data through the "ATA/IATA Reservations Interline Message Procedures - Passenger" (AIRIMP). There is no general industry standard for the layout and content of a PNR. In practice, each CRS or hosting system has its own proprietary standards, although common industry needs, including the need to map PNR data easily to AIRIMP messages, has resulted in many general similarities in data content and format between all of the major systems.
A boarding pass or boarding card is a document provided by an airline during airport check-in, giving a passenger permission to enter the restricted area of an airport and to board the airplane for a particular flight. At a minimum, it identifies the passenger, the flight number, the date, and scheduled time for departure. A boarding pass may also indicate details of the perks a passenger is entitled to and is thus presented at the entrance of such facilities to show eligibility.
An electronic ticket is a method of ticket entry, processing, and marketing for companies in the airline, railways and other transport and entertainment industries.
Dynamic packaging is a method used in package holiday bookings to enable consumers to build their own package of flights, accommodation, and car rental instead of purchasing a pre-defined package. Dynamic packages differ from traditional package tours in that the pricing is always based on current availability, escorted group tours are rarely included, and trip-specific add-ons such as airport parking and show tickets are often available. Dynamic packages are similar in that often the air, hotel, and car rates are available only as part of a package or only from a specific seller. The term "dynamic packaging" is often used incorrectly to describe the less sophisticated process of interchanging various travel components within a package, however, this practice is more accurately described as "dynamic bundling". True dynamic packaging demands the automated recombination of travel components based on the inclusion of rules that not only dictate the content of the package but also conditional pricing rules based on various conditions such as the trip characteristics, suppliers contributing components, the channel of distribution, and terms of sale. Dynamic packages are primarily sold online, but online travel agencies will also sell by phone owing to the strong margins and high sale price of the product.
Amadeus IT Group, S.A. is a major Spanish multinational technology company that provides software for the global travel and tourism industry. It is the world's leading provider of travel technology that focus on developing software for airlines, hotels, travel agencies, and other travel-related businesses.
Airline booking ploys are used by travelers in commercial aviation to lower the price of flying by circumventing airlines' rules about how tickets may be used. They are generally a breach of the contract of carriage between the passenger and the airline, which airlines may try to enforce in various ways.
A global distribution system (GDS) is a computerised network system owned or operated by a company that enables transactions between travel industry service providers, mainly airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and travel agencies. The GDS mainly uses real-time inventory from the service providers. Travel agencies traditionally relied on GDS for services, products and rates in order to provide travel-related services to the end consumers. Thus, a GDS can link services, rates and bookings consolidating products and services across all three travel sectors: i.e., airline reservations, hotel reservations, car rentals.
The Airline Tariff Publishing Company is a privately held corporation that engages in the collection and distribution of fare and fare-related data for the airline and travel industry. ATPCO currently works with more than 440 airlines worldwide, and it supplies more than 99% of the industry’s intermediated fare data to all the major airfare pricing engines, storing over 351 million active fares in its database and managing an average of 18 million fare changes each day.
An airline ticket is a document or electronic record, issued by an airline or a travel agency, that confirms that an individual is entitled to a seat on a flight on an aircraft. The airline ticket may be one of two types: a paper ticket, which comprises coupons or vouchers; and an electronic ticket.
Airline reservation systems (ARS) are systems that allow an airline to sell their inventory (seats). It contains information on schedules and fares and contains a database of reservations and of tickets issued. ARSs are part of passenger service systems (PSS), which are applications supporting the direct contact with the passenger.
Videcom International Limited is a United Kingdom travel technology company based in Henley-on-Thames. It designs, develops and provides modern computer reservations systems to airlines and the travel industry, specializing in the hosting and distribution of airline sales.
Alternate air ticket purchasing order systems allow for alternative ways of purchasing air tickets and GDS Connectivity not involving Internet or personal TA contact.
A fare basis code is an alphabetic or alpha-numeric code used by airlines to identify a fare type and allow airline staff and travel agents to find the rules applicable to that fare. Although airlines now set their own fare basis codes, there are some patterns that have evolved over the years and may still be in use.
Pricing science is the application of social and business science methods to the problem of setting prices. Methods include economic modeling, statistics, econometrics, mathematical programming. This discipline had its origins in the development of yield management in the airline industry in the 1980s, and has since spread to many other sectors and pricing contexts, including yield management in other travel industry sectors, media, retail, manufacturing and distribution.
The Transparent Airfares Act of 2014 was a proposed legislation that would have changed government regulations about how airlines advertise fares so that they could advertise the base, listing government imposed taxes and fees separately.
Basic economy class is a travel class offered by a number of airlines. The class has superseded economy class as the cheapest airfare option for passengers and generally comes with more restrictions when compared to standard economy fares. Restrictions vary between different airlines, but they generally include not allowing passengers to change or cancel tickets or select seats for free. They are seen as a strategy for market segmentation.