Friday Flyer – August 11, 2023

Revenue management is valuable to the airline when a free (or close to free) market exists that allows for charging a price based on the confluence of supply and demand.  This week, the Italian government announced that they would be capping fares on certain domestic routes.  The decision garnered strong negative reaction from some airlines.  The decision can be seen as good for the consumer to keep fares down, but the airline was charging the higher fares because they had passengers willing to pay that amount.  It’s obviously a tough decision, but from the airline’s perspective, this will hurt the bottom line and could make profitability a challenge.  In the US, fares were regulated by the government until 1978.  The deregulation led to the birth of early revenue management systems. 

Links

  • There’s a new start-up airline based in Bangkok.  The airline appears to be really cool.  I’m not sure if the airline will actually be really cool, but the name, Really Cool Airlines, seems to give the impression that they will be.  A+ for the name of the new airline!
  • The Japanese airline market is heating up again coming out of the pandemic.  The two main players in Japan are ANA and Japan Airlines (both PROS customers).  Japan Airlines has a Low Cost affiliate airline that it uses to offer lower fares.  ANA is following suit with the launch of AirJapan.
  • Air India is undergoing a transformation and this week, that included the launch of their new livery and logo.  Further, they shared the details of their new cabin interiors, which includes new first, business, premium economy, and economy seats.
  • Imagine the surprise of the ramp crew when they opened the cargo door for an Iraqi Airways Boeing 737-800 and found a bear who’d escaped its crate.  This actually happened while on the ground in Dubai.  It resulted in delays and I’m sure a few scared ground staff!
  • This may be the Friday Flyer, but this story of a man who visited 195 countries without flying caught my eye.  It was quite the adventure for him.  Though as aviation enthusiasts, I’m sure we’d all be glad to tell him that it could have been easier with flying.  And could have flown some cool airlines (maybe even Really Cool Airlines).

Interesting Aviation Fact

I came across this article on the history of Emirates.  They’re now one of the biggest airlines in the world and have helped transform Dubai into the international hub that it is today.  It all started with investment from Pakistan International Airlines.  While not in this article, I saw something that their two-letter airline code is EK, which stands for Emirates to Karachi.

Cool Aviation Photo

Last week I shared a story about Canadian airline Flair and Australian airline Bonza sharing aircraft to maximize usage during the reverse seasons.  This isn’t the first time airlines have taken this approach.  In fact, Sun Country and Transavia do the same thing via a lease agreement.  In their case, they even had a plane that wore the livery of both airlines.  Here’s the Boeing 737-800 wearing the branding of both.