The practice will go down in history as the big innovation of summer 2022. And it's not something that passengers are happy about. Mired in staff shortages both in their own companies and at airports, European and American airlines have adopted the "Hate Selling" technique. The idea is to give priority to the flow of passengers waiting for a flight due to cancellations. And to book them on the next available flights. But at the same time, other potential customers have to be dissuaded.
The best way to do this is to artificially inflated...
The practice will go down in history as the big innovation of summer 2022. And it's not something that passengers are happy about. Mired in staff shortages both in their own companies and at airports, European and American airlines have adopted the "Hate Selling" technique. The idea is to give priority to the flow of passengers waiting for a flight due to cancellations. And to book them on the next available flights. But at the same time, other potential customers have to be dissuaded.
The best way to do this is to artificially inflate ticket prices. KLM, Lufthansa practised it in July. And now British Airways takes its turn this August.
This weekend, the British carrier closed all its discounted short-haul tickets to sale. With one-way economy class flights now approaching the price of a single ticket to New York or Dubai. A Paris-London flight can cost up to 500 euros. The British carrier insists that the measure is of course temporary.. If passengers look beyond 15 August, they will again find fares from €79 one way...
Why such a measure on prices rather than announcing that flights are fully booked? Quite simply because if you indicate in your reservation that a flight is fully booked, the airline automatically closes it to all passengers. This also applies to passengers left waiting.
