I know a little bit about revenue management, such as littlewood's rule. In my mind, the price of air ticket should stochastically increase. When I try to book the tickets to Orlando from the southwest during the winter break, the price change of air ticket is quite dymatically as I can imagine. The lowest one way price in my case is $59. This price will be randomly available at each day. Moreover, the number of available seats also change at each day. That might be due to change of reservation by the other people. But it may not be entirely true.
Yesterday when other couple reserved one ticket at one time slot(depart at 12:00) and tried to reserved anther one at the same time slot, it failed since there was only one slot remaining before they reserved. So they changed to 10:00 now. Today that slot is available too. It seems that someone change or cancell their reservation yesterday. But it is not just that. I changed mine 12:55 to 10:00 in order we can go togather. But I cannot find available seats for 12:55 today(Yesterday 12:55 is unavailable). One possible explanation is that demand at 12:55 is stochastically higher than demand at 10:00 with respect to the same price. So southwest move the tickets available from me to higher price. But I don't think this is the whole story. What is the control mechnism of air ticket price at southwest is still a puzzle to me.
Btw: southwest allows you to change your reservation without any penalty. That is why "Last August, low-cost king Southwest Airlines carried more passengers than any other U.S. airline, the first time an LCC has claimed the top spot." reported by Time
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I am really interested in where you can get such a low price, only $60!!!
That's why southwest is called low-cost king in airline industry. You can try it next time. But not sure whether there is a city near Syracuse, NY as the node in southwest network. I guess the major advantage of southwest is that it only operates among the big city. It is easy to operate a small network with enought demand.
What is the website for southwest?
www.southwest.com
Apply for their membership before you first purchase. It is easy to get a free ticket if you get 16 points in two years. Usually, you can get 3 points from one rount trip.
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