All-You-Can-Fly Deals Need More Airlines
Posted by: Justin Bachman on August 17, 2010
JetBlue is back this August with its air travel version of the “all-you-can-eat” buffet. The airline’s “All You Can Jet” promotion comes in two flavors this fall, a $699 version for travel any days between Sept. 7 and Oct. 6 and a $499 pass that excludes flights on Fridays and Sundays. The fine print is on JetBlue’s site. The company says it was pleased with its original campaign a year ago.
A second airline, Sun Country, on Tuesday also announced a $499 unlimited pass for flights Sept. 7-Oct. 13. One caveat: Sun Country operates from a hub at Minneapolis-St. Paul and its schedule can make connecting difficult if you’re not starting or ending there.
These post-Labor Day efforts to move product are not novel but they do seem smart from a revenue standpoint. If you’re an airline revenue manager, a steady stream of $500 and $700 sales for seats that may well generate $0 must be a beautiful prospect indeed. I’m ready to see some other, larger airlines enter this arena. There are decent reasons they don’t jump in: chiefly that they have more lucrative business travelers than do JetBlue and Sun Country. But the majors have been experimenting all over the map when it comes to ancillary revenue schemes, from selling pillow-and-blanket sets to checked bag charges to optional fees if you want to earn additional frequent flier miles on a flight.
When will we get some innovation around peddling the core product, that plain old ticket?
