The perils of selling air travel like an all-you-can-eat buffet

So yesterday’s post was on Spirit airlines and unbundling of air travel. Today, courtesy of the LA Times, we have a story of what happens when airlines let customers buy a bundle (The frequent fliers who flew too much, May 5). Specifically, the story is about American Airlines’ AAirpass program, which allowed holders unlimited travel. When [...]

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Update time! Apple & Uber

Today we’ve got a few short comments on things we have touched on over the past few months. We have had several posts in recent months on the travails of Apple and its manufacturing partner Foxconn. Now public radio’s Marketplace has a pair of stories on Foxconn’s factories — produced with a little more cooperation [...]

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Battling restaurant no shows

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on one of my favorite topics: people who don’t keep their restaurant reservations (Knives Are Out for No-Show Diners, Mar 14). Given slim margins, people not showing up and the resulting loss sales can be a significant problem. The impact of an empty table can be a significant in [...]

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Finally, something dynamic at Wrigley: The price of bleacher seats

It’s been almost three weeks since pitchers and catchers reported so it’s time to talk a little baseball. Specifically, it’s time for an update on how Major League teams are trying to separate fans from their dollars. The trend this year is dynamic pricing. This has been going on for a while. The Giants were [...]

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Fighting back against revenue management systems

A common complaint about the travel industry is that pricing is unfair. The guy in the seat next to you on the plane may have paid a hundred dollars less or a two hundred dollars more than you did. Airlines are well known to monkey with prices on a given route — and even on [...]

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Getting taken for a ride by dynamic pricing

The New York Times had an interesting article on Uber, a car service firm operating in several cities (Disruptions: Taxi Supply and Demand, Priced by the Mile, Jan 8). Uber allows users to order a car through their smartphone and have everything billed to a credit card on record. They also aim for quality service. [...]

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Scalping Yosemite National Park

Back in February I posted on LCD Soundsystem’s battle with scalpers over the band’s last show at Madison Square Garden. Now another ticket seller is battling those reselling its offerings, the National Park Service at Yosemite. In a nutshell, the Park Service created scarcity by limiting the number of permits available for hiking up Half Dome [...]

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Demand management and university parking

I once long ago interviewed at a prominent Midwestern university (not my current employer) and had an associate dean opine “We are the only prominent business school at which parking is not a problem.” My immediate thought (which went unuttered) was “I’m not sure that is anything to brag about.” In any event, university parking [...]

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Revenue management and concert tickets

So Ticketmaster wants to bring revenue management to a concert venue near you (Ticketmaster to Tie Prices to Demand, Apr 19, Wall Street Journal). This is in many ways long over due. Airlines and others have made a science out of pricing scarce resources in the past 20 years so it is not surprising that [...]

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The Next big thing: Scalping restaurant seats

OK, a story that combines to pet topics: restaurants and ticket scalping. As I wrote last week, Next is back in the news and is now set to open. This the new Chicago restaurant that plans to have customers pay in advance — buying a ticket for a meal as opposed to merely making a [...]

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