Airline passengers today stand in numerous lines, are crowded into small seats on mostly full airplanes, and often spend time on taxiways because of air-traffic problems or lack of open gates. But what gripes travelers almost as much as these annoyances is finding out that the person sitting next to them paid a much lower fare than they did for their seat. This concept of “yield management” or “revenue management” results in ticket pricing that can range from free to thousands of dollars on the same plane. Figure 13.8 illustrates what passengers recently paid for various seats on an 11:35 A.M. flight from Minneapolis to Anaheim California, on an Airbus A320.
Make the case for, and then against, this pricing system. Does the general public seem to accept yield management? What would happen if you overheard the person in front of you in line getting a better room rate at a Hilton Hotel? How do customers manipulate the airline systems to get better fares?