empty aircraft-shouldn't that mean hundreds of ff seats ?

[ozfflyer]

found a flight to Japan on full service airline in school holidays for $380 as outbound 1/2 of the return fare. Phoned the airline & was given the impression the aircraft was "empty", but no frequent flyer seats, which seemed strange

 

[offshore171]

What dates and what carrier?

 

[Himeno]

By next month, there will be up to 11 daily flights between AU and JP across 4 carriers.
MEL-NRT (QF, JL)
BNE-NRT (QF)
SYD-HND (QF, NH)
PER-NRT (NH)
SYD-NRT (JL)
OOL-NRT (JQ)
CNS-NRT (JQ)
SYD-KIX (QF)
CNS-KIX (JQ)

(and a QF seasonal SYD-CTS starting in Dec)

The SYD flights are often highly sold. NH have been having sales on the AU route to promote the opening of their PER flights. The airlines likely feel that they can sell enough seats with sales if needed.

 

[ozfflyer]

By next month, there will be up to 11 daily flights between AU and JP across 4 carriers.
MEL-NRT (QF, JL)
BNE-NRT (QF)
SYD-HND (QF, NH)
PER-NRT (NH)
SYD-NRT (JL)
OOL-NRT (JQ)
CNS-NRT (JQ)
SYD-KIX (QF)
CNS-KIX (JQ)

(and a QF seasonal SYD-CTS starting in Dec)

The SYD flights are often highly sold. NH have been having sales on the AU route to promote the opening of their PER flights. The airlines likely feel that they can sell enough seats with sales if needed.

nope, airline is in panic mode right now

 

[MEL_Traveller]

found a flight to Japan on full service airline in school holidays for $380 as outbound 1/2 of the return fare. Phoned the airline & was given the impression the aircraft was "empty", but no frequent flyer seats, which seemed strange

Why do you think this is strange?

Airlines have programs to determine seat sales and the number of seats they think will go unsold. These seats are offered as awards.

If every empty seat was offered as an award, no one would pay.

An empty aircraft doesn't mean the flight is running at a loss. It could be full of cargo. Cargo which might have to wait if the plane was full.

It could also be premium heavy, meaning premium pax plus cargo is returning a healthy profit for the flight. No need to fill it up with award pax.

 

[zenyattamondatta]

nope, airline is in panic mode right now

Elaborate, please.

 

[Quickstatus]

found a flight to Japan on full service airline in school holidays for $380 as outbound 1/2 of the return fare. Phoned the airline & was given the impression the aircraft was "empty", but no frequent flyer seats, which seemed strange

Empty as in no passengers booked?. What airline, date and flight number?
I dont think "Given the impression" is anything to hang ones hat on.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Empty as in no passengers booked?. What airline, date and flight number?
I dont think "Given the impression" is anything to hang ones hat on.

At a maximum, agents would only know if there are a total of nine seats available for sale in any cabin (first, business, premium economy or economy). Some airlines are even more restrictive showing only a maximum of four in any cabin. Looking at ‘nines across the board’ may indicate a flight is lightly loaded, but this can often change pretty quickly.

 

[blacksultan]

had that happen to me with krisflyer in japan .no saver award suite seats even after lot of trying- I was on waitlist . finally booked premium suite option and I was the only one in the cabin.

 

[henrus]

full service airline

Can you name the airline?

 

[ozfflyer]

At a maximum, agents would only know if there are a total of nine seats available for sale in any cabin (first, business, premium economy or economy). Some airlines are even more restrictive showing only a maximum of four in any cabin. Looking at ‘nines across the board’ may indicate a flight is lightly loaded, but this can often change pretty quickly.

agents can make any number of bookings of 9 to see how many the airline will take. 11 bookings of 9 = 99.

In this case, was talking to an agent I know well, who said this particular airline had come calling, asking for help. He said airlines don't come looking for help.

He went onto say that many airlines marketing departments are hopeless. When times are good, they don't think they need agents & if they have a few seats that aren't moving fast enough, they just drop a slightly lower fare into the market & they sell.

In the main, airlines don't sell tickets, they just take orders, agents sell tickets.

Catch is now, the airlines keep dropping the fares & very few are biting. So they are coming crawling back to agents, who once got a good commission & now get very little, but too late, as in many cases, lots of agents switched to selling cruises, where they could make some money & now the marketing dept has to come up with some way of actually selling seats, without giving them away.

Have a look at some low season routes. Already some have been cut from daily to less, which can really annoy the business person, who expects daily flights, if there plans change. Even with reduced schedules, they still can't sell seats at giveaway prices.

There was a news article a few days ago talking about a HIR/BNE VA flight I think it was that had 23 pax on a 738.

Some VA flights BNE/POM load factors got so bad, they "gave" the routes to Alliance who use 80 & 100 seater Fokkers instead of ~168 seat 738s.

 

[dajop]

Can you name the airline?

Surely it has to be FJ ....

 

[ozfflyer]

Surely it has to be FJ ....

no not FJ

 

[MEL_Traveller]

It would be interesting to hear from madrooster on whether an agent can easily make 99 bookings to determine flight loadings. It might be possible if they didn’t have to enter passenger details for the seats.

 

[jakeseven7]

Surely it has to be FJ ....

Sigh, here we go again....
Perhaps someone should launch 1 stop flights to Japan via Nadi?

 

[henrus]

no not FJ

Please don't leave us guessing...

Is it a direct flight from AU to Tokyo or does it stop somewhere else in Asia.

There could be a very good reason why people aren't booking that route... be it a lesser known airline, political problems or other issues.

You've speculated here before: extra peak season flights not filling

So FJ was a good guess and I highly doubt it was QF cause I can't find any cheap seats on QF to Japan.

It would be interesting to hear from madrooster on whether an agent can easily make 99 bookings to determine flight loadings. It might be possible if they didn’t have to enter passenger details for the seats.

If you did this you'd probably lose your job. Travel agents would be banned by the airline for doing this and I'm sure airlines themselves would appreciate an agent doing that many dummy bookings.

 

[Flying Fox]

Yes it would be great if yield management would release more award seats on flights that were empty. By the same token they also want to charge heaps for last minute bookings.

I'm sure that they have their formulas and historical data in order to make good decisions for themselves.