How do ryanair choose their flight prices?

mcwhirter

Booked a flight recently, it was a good price, no complaints. Went to book the same flight for a friend and it is now cheaper. The flight is 2 months away.

I thought it would be more expensive booking nearer the day of travel.

Raekwon

I was thinking the same myself and even though they must have a system it just seems completely random and blind luck usually dictates their prices.

For example, I wanted to go away for New Years so I booked a flight for €136 two months before the trip (dropped from €159 the previous week) but when I checked the price three weeks before the trip the price was €90.......and this was at a so called peak time for travelling.

I'm now in the process of trying to book a flight for July to the same destination but for the last three months the flights have ping-ponged between €136 & €156 but I've a feeling that they will have a sale in May so I'm going to hold out until then and see what happens. It's a total gamble!

Poor Craythur

mcwhirter wrote: »

Booked a flight recently, it was a good price, no complaints. Went to book the same flight for a friend and it is now cheaper. The flight is 2 months away.

I thought it would be more expensive booking nearer the day of travel.

There's an art to booking Ryanair. It's no harm to check months in advance and keep checking but I find it goes from medium-priced to cheap maybe a month before the departure date back to expensive maybe a week before. You also have to keep in mind things like bank holidays which can bump up the price.

The Davestator

I wouldnt worry so much about what you paid with Ryanair, but rather, were you happy with the price. If you were happy with the price, then pay it and dont annoy yourself by waiting for the chance to maybe save an extra 20 or 30 euro.

sparrowcar

I'll try and make this easy...

Ryanair aircraft have 189 seats on all aircraft.

They sell the flight in "classes" or "blocks". Below is an example..

1-20 Seats €10
20-39 €25
40-59 €40
60-99 €60
100-149 €100
150-174 €150
175-189 € Last minute sales....anything up to €400-500 depending.

If the flight is not selling well closer to it's date they re-release the classes at a cheaper rate so you might find the flight actually goes like this.

1-20 Seats €10
20-39 €25
40-59 €40
60-99 €60
100-149 €50
150-174 €60
175-189 € Last minute sales....anything up to €400-500 depending.

This is just an example but gives you a rough idea of the system.

Poor Craythur

Imagine paying over 400 for a Ryanair flight? You'd feel pretty sickened, I'd wager.

Badgermonkey

It's called dynamic pricing and is designed to maximise profits and efficiency in the airline, hospitality and entertainment industries.

Some fairly byzantine actuarial equations are in use to determine pricing, only the very bored indeed should seek further information.

Raekwon

The Ryanair website has been totally revamped and is much user friendly and easier to navigate now.

The only trouble is the flights I've been looking at since February are now €183..........damn, looks like my plan for waiting until a sale just backfired

ollaetta

Raekwon wrote: »

The Ryanair website has been totally revamped and is much user friendly and easier to navigate now.

You'd need sunglasses to look at that bright yellow and light blue colour scheme! Seriously though, it badly needed a revamp.

eternal

Its website is shocking as is their service.They fly into places miles from anywhere cos they dont have to pay taxes.Websites should be easy on the eye ,youd feel like tearing your retina off looking at this one.

Pythia

Badgermonkey wrote: »

It's called dynamic pricing and is designed to maximise profits and efficiency in the airline, hospitality and entertainment industries.

Some fairly byzantine actuarial equations are in use to determine pricing, only the very bored indeed should seek further information.

I work in pricing, it's actually very exciting! (Insurance though, rather than airline)

robinph

eternal wrote: »

Its website is shocking as is their service.They fly into places miles from anywhere cos they dont have to pay taxes.

If they are not flying to where you want to go to then what are you doing buying tickets from them?

If you want a flight to Frankfurt then buy a ticket from an airline that flys into Frankfurt Main, if you want to fly to somewhere in the middle of Germany then try Ryanair and don't complain about it. Plenty of main airports for various cities are nowhere near the city anyway, Munich is one that comes to mins and is 40 minutes on the train. It's not the airlines fault because of where someone built an airfield. It is your fault if you buy tickets to somewhere a long way away from where you want to get to and didn't research it properly.

As for the pricing, well they charge what they think they can get away with. If that value changes over time then they will adjust the prices accordingly.

coylemj

Airline ticket pricing is known in the business as 'load balancing', it is all about maximizing profits. As an earlier poster showed, the initial batch of tickets go cheap, then once the base cost of the flight is covered it's all about filling more seats for as much dosh as possible.

There isn't much science involved if it's a morning flight to Manchester on the day of a match in Old Trafford when clearly every seat will be expensive but for other routes there's a fair bit of science and expensive software involved.

I had a guy over on business from the UK a few years ago, he had to come at the last minute and paid Ryanair several hundred pounds sterling for the flight. Imagine his shock when he then had to pay for a cup of coffee on board!