Air China! How do they profit?

[iluvasians/latins]

Would never fly them. They had a weekend sale recently. I could have gotten a r/t ticket from Houston to BKK for $650 in October. How do they do it?

[Harvey707]

Would never fly them. They had a weekend sale recently. I could have gotten a r/t ticket from Houston to BKK for $650 in October. How do they do it?

 

"Buying" custom for the long run exactly the same as Oman have been doing for last 3 years as their ordered new aircraft start to arrive. Just looking at prices for October trip and £345 short connection flights

[hioctane]

I see EVA flights for around the same price and they are a much better airline.

[Buddy Edgewood]

How do they do charge so little?  My guess is Chinese government subsidies.  Similar to how the US government subsidizes certain industries so they can compete.

[Luv2Phuket]

Airline subsidies by foreign governments are a hot button issue in the industry -- there is a big "battle" going on between US carriers and the Middle Eastern carriers due to this issue.

 

Delta's recently retired CEO (Richard Anderson) was pretty outspoken on the issue, but he is mild mannered compared to Qatar's CEO (Akbar Al Baker)  -- check out some of their battles...like when Al Baker basically said Qatar was starting an Atlanta to Doha route to "rub salt in the wounds" of Delta, who dropped that route (ostensibly because they couldn't make any money on it due to subsidies).  Not surprisingly, when the first Qatar A380 landed in Atlanta, they were told there was no gate for them, and the passengers had to de-plane using remote stairs (can't imagine how long that took - ti was an A380!).  Al Baker immediately blamed "wicked" Delta.  555

[badrodald]

Flying Air China for the first time, 850 from Calgary r/t. They had the shortest flight time(my #1 priority) and the cheapest fare.

[cbmgolfer]

Government subsidies ... A huge number of Chinese industries are propped up by government money.

 

That's why they call it China Inc.

[mr21]

Flying Air China for the first time, 850 from Calgary r/t. They had the shortest flight time(my #1 priority) and the cheapest fare.

Let us know how that works out for you...

[steamer]

Flying Air China for the first time, 850 from Calgary r/t. They had the shortest flight time(my #1 priority) and the cheapest fare.

Air China the whole way and is there a stopover in China?

[badrodald]

The Calgary to Vancouver leg and return is Air Canada and the rest of the flight is Air China. The next cheapest option that doesn't include China Eastern or Air China is Air Canada/United which is only 200 more but takes 38 hrs. The original option only takes 22.5 hrs. For a 16 hour difference gotta go with Air China, hope the leg room is good.

[steamer]

The Calgary to Vancouver leg and return is Air Canada and the rest of the flight is Air China. The next cheapest option that doesn't include China Eastern or Air China is Air Canada/United which is only 200 more but takes 38 hrs. The original option only takes 22.5 hrs. For a 16 hour difference gotta go with Air China, hope the leg room is good.

Flew American/China Eastern (Southern? Whatever) with a stopover somewhere in China. Was something about American not being able to print me a ticket for the second leg so got scrutinised in China since I had no ticket or visa. Shit flight/service on second leg and they 'lost' my luggage. Never again.

[SlowlyMan]

Korean is offering ORD-BKK for $800. Not much more really considering.

 

I've read there isn't much margin in discounted coach class tickets. The real money is made from the cargo in the lower deck. And, of course the guys paying to fly up front.

[Kandinski]

Would never fly them. They had a weekend sale recently. I could have gotten a r/t ticket from Houston to BKK for $650 in October. How do they do it?

With cost of the actual flight more or less covered by biz class and cargo. Revenue is generated from high passenger load factor in economy. Not all eco seats are equal prized but a play with numbers, say 200 on monkey @ USD650, ea gives a revenue of USD 130.000,- which at the end of the day would net a small profit

[LASportsNut]

Plus the employees makes far less money than those in other countries. 

[Luv2Phuket]

With cost of the actual flight more or less covered by biz class and cargo. Revenue is generated from high passenger load factor in economy. Not all eco seats are equal prized but a play with numbers, say 200 on monkey @ USD650, ea gives a revenue of USD 130.000,- which at the end of the day would net a small profit

 

Not to go too far off topic, but I saw firsthand on Thursday the variances in pricing of seats on a flight --

 

ALL Southwest flights from SoCal into Las Vegas were canceled.  Luckily, I was taking JetBlue out of Long Beach for a change.  

 

When a friend told me early Thursday a.m. that his flight was canceled, I checked on the price for him to get on my flight -- it had gone up from the $120 or so that I paid to around $260 (one way).  He drove, but, when I got to Long Beach, the woman waiting to get on the plane next to me said JetBlue hit her for $550 for the one way ticket into Las Vegas after her Southwest flight out of Orange County was canceled.

 

Supply and demand.....but OUCH!