is fly365.com actually owned by certain airlines ?

[ozfflyer]

Was looking online om skyscanner to see what sort of airfares would be looking at for a trip next year.

Without naming names/routes, found one online travel agency, that seemed to be much cheaper, than anyone else, but only for 1 particular airline.

It’s almost like one airline is having trouble selling seats, so they quietly set up a travel agency & effectively give them a huge commission, so they can move seats without having a sale & without saying to anyone, what is going on.

Looked at same route on other airlines & they seem to just have the same fares as the airlines own website.

 

[dajop]

No point in discussing without naming names.

 

[mannej]

There seems to be a pattern in these threads with a lot of hypothetical posturing. I’m not sure it helps members to discuss the topic at hand?

 

[henrus]

Ozfflyer with all due respect this is now the third time in the past couple of weeks that you've posted in the discussion board with nothing to discuss.

I can't read your (or anyones) mind and I'd love to know what online booking engine you're talking about so unless you're willing to share then we can't have a discussion.

For Reference here are some of the other discussions lacking the key facts:

empty aircraft-shouldn't that mean hundreds of ff seats ?

found a flight to Japan on full service airline in school holidays for $380 as outbound 1/2 of the return fare. Phoned the airline & was given the impression the aircraft was "empty", but no frequent flyer seats, which seemed strange

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

extra peak season flights not filling

talking to a few airline industry people & it seems some airlines have put on extra flights over normally very busy Xmas school holidays & they might now be regretting it, but very hard to cancel them now, without major disruption to passengers booked on these flights. So airlines are stuck...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[ajd]

Ignoring the lack of details - if you just wanted to sell some seats quietly, why would you bother setting up your own travel agency rather than just finding an existing agency in your network that could do with some help and offering them a discount via existing channels?

 

[moa999]

Could it just not be offering a decent rebate to an agency, known for passing it back to customers to drive traffic

 

[ozfflyer]

it sounds like you can almost buy an off the shelf package these days & wham bam, you have an online travel agency. Catch is getting the name out there, but it's probably cheap to advertise on skyscanner.

It just seemed a bit suspicious having 1 airline on a particular site, discounting the hell out of 1 airline only.

Not going to mention name, as it might be another bestjet, who were apparently working on such thin margins, it didn't cover overheads.

With airlines having so much trouble selling leisure seats & if you type in A to B & the cheapest almost always comes up with 1 particular airline, when many fly the route, you've got to ask the question, who owns the site.

Travel agencies would love to hear that not only are they competing with airlines & online only travel agencies, but also airlines running online travel agencies, in cognito.

If an airline simply paid a certain travel agency more commission, it would come out very quickly.

 

[dajop]

Is Fiji Airways the airline you’re talking about? Trip.com the agent?

 

[Must...Fly!]

Would it really come out quickly?

Because that's been happening for, quite literally, years. Flight Centre get exclusive deals and inventory. So do others.

And every airline has their own travel agency (in the form of what you state, an OTA). For example Qantas - try Qantas.com.

 

[ozfflyer]

Would it really come out quickly?

Because that's been happening for, quite literally, years. Flight Centre get exclusive deals and inventory. So do others.

And every airline has their own travel agency (in the form of what you state, an OTA). For example Qantas - try Qantas.com.

flightwise, qantas.com doesn't sell much apart from Qantas or Qantas codeshare flights or frequent flyer seats on one world airlines. Most of the travel agents on skyscanner sell almost all airlines.

 

[luxury-lizard]

Personally when I find an airfare offered on an OTA (via Skyscanner or BookWithMatix or whatever) which is significantly lower than other channels I assume "unreliable bucket shop" and avoid - there are so many tales on various FF forums/blogs about passengers stuffed about with schedule changes, delays, cancellations etc etc.

 

[ozfflyer]

Personally when I find an airfare offered on an OTA (via Skyscanner or BookWithMatix or whatever) which is significantly lower than other channels I assume "unreliable bucket shop" and avoid - there are so many tales on various FF forums/blogs about passengers stuffed about with schedule changes, delays, cancellations etc etc.

am sure there's nothing wrong with most OTAs as long as don't ever want to make a change to itinerary or there's a disruption somewhere(although seem to try to upsell to some products that most people will never ever need).

Anyone can book a flight, but it's sorting through airline rules, that are often seemingly written by some dodgy lawyer, who failed english at school, when there is a change required, comes down to experience & who the agent knows & how much business they do with a particular airline.

Often airline personnel don't even understand their own rules as they are often so badly written.

With the current world economy airlines must be more creative to survive.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Anyone can book a flight, but it's sorting through airline rules, that are often seemingly written by some dodgy lawyer, who failed english at school, when there is a change required, comes down to experience & who the agent knows & how much business they do with a particular airline.

I dunno how much an agent contributes to understanding of the fare rules. Most pax are price sensitive, the cheapest fares will all have the same restrictive rules. If pax come in asking for 'flexibility' an agent might be able to assist. (Certainly agents willplug insurance... at their hefty 50% commission.)

With the current world economy airlines must be more creative to survive.

Several airlines have been around for close to 100 years. Through many ups and downs in the world economy. They probably have a good idea of what they're doing.

 

[ozfflyer]

Had a look at 365.com & they seem to have the best fares, but they only seem to deal with certain airlines.

Got the feeling, certain airlines are using fly365.com as a way to try & sell seats cheaply that they otherwise can’t sell.

Maybe the managers don’t even know who their ultimate owners are ?

Anyone else had similar thoughts ?

 

[woodborer]

Familiar question.
Is it the same as this one?

airlines setting up their own online travel agency on the quiet ?

Was looking online om skyscanner to see what sort of airfares would be looking at for a trip next year. Without naming names/routes, found one online travel agency, that seemed to be much cheaper, than anyone else, but only for 1 particular airline. It’s almost like one airline is having...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[ozfflyer]

maybe

It wouldn't be that difficult to set up through a law firm, so that it was almost impossible to find out the owners.

 

[moa999]

Which airlines in particular are you seeing cheaper?
Could also just be that they have some bulk/rebate deals and are effectively just passing some of that discount on

 

[ozfflyer]

Which airlines in particular are you seeing cheaper?
Could also just be that they have some bulk/rebate deals and are effectively just passing some of that discount on

quite a few TG, FJ, VA etc.

 

[odysseus]

Seems way more likely that they offer a discount through certain channels/wholesalers (which already happens) than that unrelated group of airlines have made a common investment in a very low margin retail booking business.

 

[ozfflyer]

Seems way more likely that they offer a discount through certain channels/wholesalers (which already happens) than that unrelated group of airlines have made a common investment in a very low margin retail booking business.

maybe no margin. Airline loads outside of peak season are awful & long haul most airlines can't sub a smaller aircraft.