Airfare Pricing

The next time you're on a flight, just take a minute to glance around the plane at your fellow passengers. The chances are that not one of them has paid the exact same amount of money as you did for their plane ticket. In fact, some might have paid up to 10 times as much as others; just for the same few inches of leg-room.

What is a 'Cheap' Fare?

Providing a definition of a 'cheap' airline ticket is difficult; we tend to buy tickets that meet our needs, at a price we are willing to pay. For example, say you wanted to buy a return ticket from Manchester to Los Angeles. If you were booking a few months ahead and were flexible with your dates, you might not think that a fare of £550 was a particularly good price. However, if you needed to buy a ticket urgently to fly tomorrow, you might consider that same £550 a pretty good deal.

IATA Fares

All airlines want to sell seats at the highest price possible. Their official IATA (International Air Transport Association) airfares are often published more than a year ahead, but these are so high that only very few people actually pay them.

The only people who are likely to buy these full price fares are business travellers and people with an urgent need to travel. Neither of these groups of people tends to search for cheaper alternatives; the business travellers lack any incentive to do so as they are often fully reimbursed by their companies, whilst those who find themselves having to travel at the last minute simply don't have the time.

Discounted Fares

As the planes would end up being fairly empty at the IATA fares, the airlines also offer discounted fares. Airlines employ specialists, who try to calculate, given market conditions, when to offer seats for a certain price. However, there will only be so many seats on offer at this discounted price, and as soon as these are sold, then the fare will rise once more. A few weeks later, depending on bookings, cheaper seats may be offered again.

Read further in this section for tips on finding the best plane fares.