Corona price gouge

QF MEL-SYD at 19:00 this evening

Was $336 at 14:11 this afternoon

At 14:17 was $1511

I get there’s supply and demand but this is despicable price gouging of people needing to get home. If they were the real national carrier they’d try to put on extra services (I know it’s challenging at short notice) but these days it’s all about dollars.

The reservations system works on a system of dynamic pricing. Which means the fewer seats remaining, the higher the price goes. It's an algorithm that's built into the system - Qantas didn't manually change the pricing to a higher level after today's border announcement.

I suppose they *might* be able to turn that system off, but not sure how long it would take to do that and to manually enter pricing for each flight.

You can't really blame Qantas. It exists to make profit. It is not a public service. They are not forcing anyone to buy $1511 tickets. Any extra profits they made yesterday afternoon probably won't even offset the losses in MEL over the next few days.

Do the last economy seats on a Mel-Syd flight always go for $1511? No, it’s a blatant price gouge and affects vulnerable people who might have needed to get to Sydney before midnight, maybe for medical appointments or whatever. I get it’s the system they use, I’m saying it’s a bad system. I’ll be on virgin and Rex in the future.

It’s one way to determine who’s need is greatest. If one really has to get to Sydney for whatever reason then they will pay for it.

Any idea which class seats you are referring to?

It is price gouging and nothing more. But Qantas exists to make a profit and is not a national carrier.

QF did the same thing after international flights ended last year (a friend rushed back home last year, had to pay the change fee and pay full fare and the flight was only half full).

Its one way thats true, but most people can't afford $1500+ at the drop of a hat.

I'm sure they won't care at all. I've decided to not use QF in the future for short-haul. Perhaps if others do too then their attitude may change. I left Commbank too due to their poor service, its the only thing you can do if a companies values don't align with yours.

Econ of course....what else would you be flying for $300 on QF?!

There are different classes of Economy seats like E, G, L, M, N, O, Q, S, V or B, H, K, Y the latter are flexible fares and more expensive

ever seen the prices for flights to lord howe island?

What do you think being a 'national carrier' entails? Being a charity? It is still a business. And you had other options (Virgin, Jetstar, XPT).

Just remember how qantas behaved once it goes back to normal.

The product and service offerings from our asian (jal, singapore, ana, cathay) and arab (qatar, emirates, etihad) airline friends is miles better than qantas.

qantas was still trying to ferry us idiots around in decades old 747's, it might be a business model that works for british airways, but we shouldn't accept sub standard for premium price when we dont need to.

sure but does the customer really care? I'm talking about cheapest available.