Originally Posted by
Vokes55
Actually a lot of people did see this coming. The rate for Lanzarote and Fuerteventura has been below 20/100,000 in 7 days for the past four weeks. I don’t think anybody saw the whole lot coming back, but TUI certainly never took FUE/ACE off sale for this weekend.
5000 holidays is nothing. That’s 26 full 737s, or half a day’s program in normal times. Fact is, TUI, easyJet, BA and Ryanair will all have flights to the Canaries this weekend which were never off sale, and aren’t relying solely on last minute sales.
But that is making an assumption the market now is behaving how it always has which isn’t the case. For one thing a lot of holidays aren’t new bookings and cash but postponed ones from earlier in the year. Who in their right mind would book more than a couple of weeks ahead? Yes Canaries have opened now but who’s to say they won’t do a Portugal and close again in a month or less? So last minute is now the dominant force.
On the supply side not having anything scheduled leaves you nimble and able to react quickly to opportunities. TUI and others could be lumbered with schedules which aren’t optimum, or face the cost and customer service risk of having to rebook and refund