Hi Guys, Why is it that if I check prices for myself a flight to the Philippines return its half the price of booking for my gf return flight from Philippines. Its very strange. Anyone notice that?
Yes the structuring of airline ticket prices can be very strange. 4 years ago I was in UK for a break to recover from minor surgery to my ankle. Whilst there, on a whim, I decided to take short holiday in Thailand. I booked Emirates from London to Phuket return. The flight was via Dubai. It was cheaper than I could book Emirates Dubai/Phuket return, so effectively, I got Lon/Dubai/Lon for free....!
Are you using the airlines own websites and are you on Philippine version of their website or are you using the likes of Skyscanner? Airlines price flights by market and by a complex set of rules that are designed to fill the flights as much as possible, economy seats are priced so that the airline more or less covers the costs of the flight, the real profits come from the sale of business and first class seats. Prices vary all the time, you will also find that they will profile you if you are regularly checking a specific route and that the price for that route will change because they see a lot of interest in it, more so if you are signed in to their websites with your loyalty programme account, it lets them track your interests in greater detail.
they can profile from the cookies and your ip if you look at a flight cost then go back next day it may well cost more "dynamic pricing"
The most basic explanation given to me by a former colleague who used to work with emirates and etihad: - cargo moves from east to west (china or india to europe) driving the over all price higher - for pinoy in general - for every 10 pinoys that leaves ph for middle east only 5 comes back (5 either hides or work legally). So logic will tell you that airlines have excess capacity when they fly the far east countries like ph and a very high demand (even at full capacity) for flights from ph to middle east.
What's even stranger is that it reputedly costs a thousand pounds for a single flight away from the Philippines but only ten pounds for a return ticket.
I had the same issue recently. Even stranger was when you enter +/-3 days on Philippines Airlines, it shows a cheaper flight the day before but when you try to select it, it immediately increases in price...
Don't see it like that Maley. I have flown with several airlines, Emirates, Philippines Airlines, Cebu. Singapore etc between Dubai and Philippines and the flights are equally full in both directions. If as you say only 50% of flyers to middle east return the Gulf countries would be full to overflowing with overstayers in a very short while. Yes agreed there are some overstayers but not in the number your theory would suggest. I think there is more to it than that.
I agree. Besides, cargo planes do not carry passengers and airlines tend to have similar capacity in both directions since planes tend to shuttle back and forth due to the needs of the crew. The price discrepancy is probably due to market forces. The UK has plentiful supply of cheap destinations and proportionally less demand for flights to the Philippines. The Philippines has limited supply of international flights and a strong demand for flights out.
Not just over stayers- just majority of pinoys would get a tourist visa for a month and then find work in the middle east. Majority of everyone that i know started with that set-up. So thats partially driving the increase in price and the percentage i have given ratio probably is lower than that now. So far thats the only logical explanation that was given to me by an airline insider. It is also applicable for us who have settled in the uk - when we flew out of the ph, we didnt buy a return flight. So when that plane picked me up in ph- and dropped in the uk, the carrier is flying empty on the return flight. Someone has to pay for that seat.
That may have been the case some time ago, but now I think the opposite is true, there are more Pinoys leaving the Gulf now than entering. Financial situation here is not as strong as it was, most companies laying off staff, not to mention the political crisis.
Is it as bad as the last one? Maybe the pricing model used by some carriers might not be updated to reflect reality on the ground.
The Qatar crisis is pretty bad, my extended family have OFW's working in Qatar which is effectively a country under siege, food supplies are a major issue in that country just now although they are managing.
It is not a crash as 2008 but still the economy in most Gulf countries is struggling. Business is feeling the pinch, coupled with ever rising living costs, plus VAT coming in next January.
Airfares are all down to market forces. In the UK, what are the chances you can go down to a working class council estate and find people discussing their trips to Dubai or Summer holiday in Barbados? The chances are quite high. Even poor British people have money to travel. That will probably change after Brexit, but we'll save that for a different thread. If you go down to Tondo, you will struggle to find anyone who can afford a break to Tagaytay, let alone abroad. If you go to a middle class neighbourhood elsewhere in Manila, you'll find people who are planning trips to Boracay. Again, only a few will even be looking at going to Hong Kong or Thailand. The prices for these shorter, intra Asian routes will be comparable in price to what we pay for short flights in Europe. Filipinos who can get tourist visas for Europe and afford to pay their own way for a couple of weeks will generally be among the very wealthiest of Filipino families. The airlines will gouge this market for all it can. Unfortunately for the airlines, these wealthy upper-middle class families (plus Filipino business travellers) represent just a fraction of the Filipino market. The majority of ex-PH bookings (so not including OFWs taking a quick vacation from the Gulf) will be on Marine fares for merchant seaman and labourer fares for OFWs. The agents who make these bookings will have access to route deals with various airlines which will not be saleable via Expedia or the airline's own website. If the Philippines ever becomes a middle class country (which I fear will not happen in my lifetime) and ordinary Filipinos become a truly relevant market for the airlines, then you will see fares coming down to levels that you see in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
Not sure I follow your argument. Are you saying that there are plenty of passengers from UK who can afford to fly and not so many from Philippines and therefore fares are cheaper out of UK? I would have thought the opposite would be true. Airlines need to fill seats, if there are plenty of passengers out of UK I would have expected the airlines to rise prices knowing that there are plenty of potential customers who can afford a higher fare, whereas in order to fill seats flying out of Philippines they would have to lower the fares to make it affordable for Philippines to be able to fly.
It's all very well making air travel affordable for ordinary Filipinos. You could price it at zero pesos. The ordinary Filipino still won't travel because (a) getting a tourist visa is difficult/impossible and (b) other expenses make international leisure travel a distant dream. The airlines simply don't target this market because it's non existent. In Europe and the USA, the cheap 'n cheerful market is high in volume and extremely competitive. The cheap 'n cheerful fares for the OFW/Seamen already hit yields on ex-PH traffic. The small leisure market of affluent Filipino international travellers offsets these lower fares. Even then, the margins overall are still very low. This is why traditional airlines have struggled to make Manila a viable destination, yet fly umpteen times weekly to other cities. The ME3 carriers dominate due to their lower operating costs and their abilities to rely more upon volume than yield.
When I flew regularly with KLM on the UK->AMS-MNL route and later the route that included Taipei the majority of passengers from AMS onwards were Filipino, I often flew business class and there were very few times in later years that there were ever any empty seats, now yeah I know that a lot of them in economy were Seamen and a lot were OFW's in Europe but there were plenty of families as well and lots of ladies on their own, most of the flights were full, the only time I was ever on a half empty one was the very first time I went there and that was with Emirate via Dubai. The return legs were basically the same packed with Filipinos, the westerners were definitely in the minority, however in later years, I mean 2009 onwards, the majority of those travelling in business were Filipino, I've lost count of the number of Filipino's I've had a natter with in business class as they were in the seat beside me. I'm not saying you are wrong as I think your logic holds up fairly well, just saying it wasn't and hasn't been my perception of things for a quite a while.
