Why Airline Will Not Offer Cheap Flights, Rather Fly With Empty Seats?

Whether the last minute flight deals are for real or not is dependent on the wishes of the airline. Typically, the airline opens its bucket of flight seats for the travelers in installments. The ones which are offered in the first instance are priced low in general so that the first passengers get the incentive of booking ahead of others. Typically, these are the people who have firm travel plans done in advance. For this reason, the surest way to lay hand on discounted airfare tickets is to book in advance.

Now, when the flight time is closing in and the airline still finds that there are seats to offer, a quick calculation is done on whether sufficient revenues on sale of tickets has been earned or not. If this has been done and there is still a demand for the tickets, then the prices of remaining seats may not be reduced to dirty cheap level. However, if the revenue target has not yet been met and the demand for seats is also not very high, there is a need for reducing the ticket prices to try and fill up the seats. There is a third possibility as well. This possibility banks on the general policy of the airline. An airline might not offer the empty seats to passengers at all, as a matter of policy. This would then mean that the cheap flights at the last minute is no longer a possibility which passengers shall look forward to.

Now, why on earth the airline will not offer its last remaining seats at throwaway prices? After all, it can still make more money. But, the reality is that this does not happen. Why? This is essentially because the airline would not like to cultivate this habit among passengers that they will be able to get cheap flights at the eleventh hour. If the airline becomes quite predictable by selling tickets at reduced prices just before the flight time, it will mean that people will not book in advance and would instead wait till the very end. And, if this happens for a good percentage of seats and too often, there will be a marked decline in revenue of the airline.

Besides, there will be operational issues at the airport. This will lead to a scramble at the airport for these tickets. The flow of passengers through security and check-in will become delayed and haphazard and there is likely to be confusion all around. Overall, the situation will become unmanageable if other airlines also begin this practice.

For these reasons, the airline prefers to fly with empty seats. Although, in vast majority of cases, this does not happen often because the airlines have a declared policy of overbooking of flights which is contradictory to the scenario of flying with empty seats.