Emergency Travel Costs are Outrageous

[FarCenter]

16. It is called "yield management", and it is the result of deregulation under President Carter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_management

Basically, the airlines regard passengers flying under different circumstances as different market segments. People booking in advance, people staying over Saturday night, people booking a day or two ahead are all different market segments that have different willingness to pay.

Airlines are particularly keen on attempting to differentiate between business travelers, who typically don't book in advance and who don't stay over Saturday night, from leisure travelers. This is because business travelers (and or their employers) have a higher willingness to pay.

Emergency travelers look like sales people making an urgent sales call as far as yield management algorithms are concerned.

It appears that the old strategy of flying standby as a way of getting a cheap ticket has gone away, although prices may go down in the last hours before departure if the computers project empty seats.