Airline booking: the curve changes

It used to be simple. To figure out when people would buy airline seats and for how much was a fairly straightforward undertaking: just look at what they did a year ago. That's how airline revenue management worked, with a few tweaks here and there. But the formula has changed with the change in consumer habits as the new airline paradigm, the paradigm of crisis, is upon us. Roger Harris, the chief revenue officer for Sun Country Airlines, explained the changes the other day. "Consumers and travelers are changing the closer-in side of the curve, waiting and then booking earlier as they see that the price of fuel is rising every day. They wonder oif the price is going to go up again, so they make their last-minute bookings a little sooner in the last few days before the flight." But the data does not follow their purchases soon enough, Harris told the Low-Cost Airlines World Americas 2008 Conference. "We need more and better data, and we need it sooner," Harris said.