News: Qantas passenger numbers up in Sep, page-3

I booked some tickets to New Zealand today. Qantas was a lot dearer than either AIZ or Virgin.

$557 versus $359. return.

The major airlines seem to be increasingly offering big buy-now, travel (much) later, discounted tickets. Cash flow in now, worry about the expenses later. Hopefully they are doing their homework, but such action increases the number of 'free' passengers later. At an extreme it means that a plane could be paying the full costs of transport, while it is full of passengers who are not paying anything at all.

In other words, such forward selling increases the chances of catastrophic failure. But I assume the boffins know the viable limits of this pay now fly later desperation.

Its a bit like a mining company forward selling its as yet unmined product. Accountants don't like that much, and too much of it sees a company downgraded as its unfunded liabilities mount up.