5 replies to this topic

[SIALimited]

I've been curious, other than IFS Scam, talking with the player of the other airline or simply just closing the route, how do you deal with other airlines that severely undercut prices even when there is enough demand for two or three airlines to operate profitably.

 

Point being, is that Airline 'A' cut's his/her prices by $50 across the board and soon Airline 'B' does the same but just lower and you're forced to follow suit and it's a vicious cycle. I once had a route in which Economy Prices went from $220 to $70.

 

Sure would love to hear the opinions of other players on this.

 

Regards,

S.

[Amadeus Inc.]

Find other less competitive routes to fly your aircraft and make decent profit. You can always come back later when your airline bigger, having some extra aircraft and DOP to seriously fight back the competition.

[mxax-ai]

But there's no use to fight competition if all parties involved are willing to give their tickets away for nothing. I've had routes going from $1.2 mio to $300.000 DOP and ticket prices from $200 to $30-$50.

[SIALimited]

Thanks for all the replies, guys!

[Mobeer]

Early on when small, it's best to concentrate on empty routes and let other airlines weaken by fighting each other.

Later it gets more complex:
1 - if an alliance partner, then communicate and maybe reduce seats
2 - if other airline is small, or a new player, then either communicate and reduce seats, or maybe be lazy and just match prices
3 - if no time to do anything else, match prices
4 - if time, then undercut back

In cases 3 or 4, also consider adding more seats to drive prices down further. My aim would be to make sure that even if I cannot make a profit, no-one else can either. To my mind the worst thing to do would be to back down - that just leads to more competition.

[MSYPI7185]

You will find if an airline or two lowers their prices stupid low. Raise your fares back up. I have had luck doing just this and getting market share back.