Air fares - guide needed!

[puggit]

Anyone know how these are calculated?!

For instance:

Travelling to Helsinki next Tuesday - It's £730 for the same day return with Finnair or £230 for BA. BA codeshare with Finnair

To return the next day was £330.

They just seem to make the numbers up, so long as it ends in £x30!

[T5-R]

Are they the exact same flights? I think you'll find the fares go up or down depending on what time the flight is. If you want to fly at a respectable time, you'll pay for it. If you don't mind flying at awkward times, you can get them cheaper.

Not an exact science, but that's my take on it

>> Edited by T5-R on Monday 5th December 13:42

[tonyhetherington]

I flew to Helsinki a couple of weeks ago.

You get BA flying to Helsinki, and you also get Finnair codesharing with BA.

BA have recently (well, 1 yr ago) changed the way they calculate fares and so it's far more straight forwards (it used to be number of days away, saturday nights etc. etc) now it's simply done in a similar way to Easyjet - there's X number of seats at £50, £100, £150. You just got to get in there first.

I assume at £730 that's fully flexible business class?

[zetec]

I am pretty sure they are worked out by how many people are allready booked on the flight. I know the budget airlines work that sort of system. For example: Flight from Airport A to Airport B at any date any time is £100. Bookings are low, need more people on plane to make it worth running, price goes down to £60. Does the trick, more bookings. Price goes back up to £100, a few more booking are made until the plane is nearly full. Then as it is worth it in money terms to the airline to fly, price goes up to £300. The reason for this is that if you HAVE to travel on that flight, you WILL pay the price.

Or something like that!

[T5-R]

There you have it then. Apart from sticking a wet finger in the air and seeing which way the wind is blowing, I'd say a combination of the 3 theories posted is how they're calculated.

If you do fly Finnair, they have the TV cameras on the landing gear so you can see the M4/M25 jams from the air

[tonyhetherington]

haha - yeah, that was the first time I'd seen them! Was really good!

I did think the pilot ended up with 200 back-seat-drivers though; because the whole of the passengers I just know were thinking "you were 2 ft to the left of the centre line god damnit!"

[puggit]

Scotland and back on Friday and Monday.

Finland and back on Tuesday.

Have I accepted the wrong job?

[T5-R]

puggit said:

Scotland and back on Friday and Monday. Finland and back on Tuesday. Have I accepted the wrong job?

Nice place Helsinki. Bet it's cold this time of year though.

Glasgow and back on Thursday, for me. Ahh, the joys of the jetset lifestyle

[tvrolet]

T5-R said:

puggit said: Scotland and back on Friday and Monday. Finland and back on Tuesday. Have I accepted the wrong job? Nice place Helsinki. Bet it's cold this time of year though. Glasgow and back on Thursday, for me. Ahh, the joys of the jetset lifestyle

Ah well, Edin-Luton tomorrow, get back Wednesday. Again on Friday. Again on Monday. Then drive to Newcastle on Tuesday. Then Edin-Luton again on Thursday....

How I wish EasyJet did airmiles or similar. When I used to do the same level of domestics on BA I got enough for 2 trips to Vancouver, a trip to Denver, and a family trip to NY and a family trip to Munich in the space of maybe 18 months.

WB