By: David Pelter, VP of Pricing
Alaska Airlines Launches Fare Sale
On Wednesday, Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air launched a sale celebrating Alaska’s 75th anniversary.
Overall, this sale offers pretty good value, and it is worth noting that exceptional deals can be found from Seattle to Palm Springs, Portland, and Santa Barbara. The prices of each are all at their respective nine-month lows. The same can be said for the following destinations with flights departing out of Anchorage: Fairbanks, Juneau, and Seattle. One final note, customers must purchase tickets by March 29, 2007, and travel by November 15, 2007.
Airline Traffic
Last week, the airlines all released their passenger load numbers for February. This data provides a good window into how happy the airlines are with their bookings. Although this information is only released after a month has finished, it can provide interesting insight into the direction of future fares. In February’s case, Jetblue, Alaska, and Hawaiian all finished February with less of their seats filled than last year.
In a nutshell, these airlines did not fill their planes at the same rate they did last year and this might lead them to launch future fare sales should these trends continue. I’ve graphed below the change in their year-over-year domestic February load factors (% of seats filled on their planes is a good measure of efficiency) to see which airlines might need some help in filling future flights. As a side note, both Alaska and JetBlue launched sales in the past week.
(click to view)
That’s it from HQ in Seattle. Until next week, happy travels and have a great weekend.