FLYR Weekly 2014-12-15

US Airfare Trend Report

Week of December 15, 2014

Flights departing December 22, 2014 – January 20, 2015 Observation period: December 9-15, 2014

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Welcome to the inaugural issue of FLYR’s US Airfare Trend Report. FLYR is a data science company that constructs technologies to predict and mitigate future airfare volatility. Our goal is to develop tools that are able to neutralize uncertainty in travel planning. In the (near) future, we want such tools to be as ubiquitous and easy to use as a weather forecast. In studying the frequent changes in airfares, we’re constantly gathering and analyzing a huge body of fare information. From this raw input, our team of data scientists and researchers collect and curate a number of key points to present in this report on a periodic basis — we hope it is of interest to travelers and industry observers alike. We welcome your comments and questions, as well as ideas and suggestions for future reports. Happy Holidays and Steady Travels, FLYR Research



About this data We observed the cohort of non-stop US domestic airfares departing December 22, 2014 to January 20, 2015. These fares were observed over a seven-day period ending December 15, 2014. The majority of large commercial carriers in the US market are represented.

Notes: This past week saw the greatest proportion of fare increases from Alaskan, with half their flights over the next month having gone up in price. On the other side, the vast majority of US Airways flights were surprisingly intact week-on-week among this cohort, which includes last-minute fares for year-end holiday travel.

Notes: While the proportion of US Airways flights that rose in price was rather small, this also means the possibility of more skewed data when it comes to measuring the magnitude of change. We use the median fare change, as outliers in volatile airfare markets do tend to affect averages significantly at times.



Notes: Those extensive fare hikes across the Alaskan network are apparent in the chart on top. An amazing 81% and 77% of flights departing Anchorage and Fairbanks rose in price. On the other end, 63% of flights from Houston Hobby airport and 64% of flights from Chicago Midway (both secondary airports) fell in price, recovering from prior hikes on holiday fares.



Notes: In analyzing destinations, much of the information mirrors the movement seen in origin-based data.



Notes: Here, the effects of extreme shifts in airfares are quite apparent — a product of the outlier effect. On flights departing over next month, flights departing both Savannah and Santa Barbara airports had a median fare hike of $464 and $610, respectively.



Notes: Among the flights heading to Wilmington, NC, 14% rose in price over the past week. Of those, the median increase was a whopping $558. Coincidentally, a quarter each of flights to Eugene, OR dropped and rose in price, with a median of $212 in both directions.



Notes: In over 80% of airports, fares increased among the cohort of flights departing 12/22 – 1/20 over the seven-day observation period. The number differs slightly depending on the perspective of origin vs. destination airport.



Trends Among 30 Major Airport Routes (by tracked non-stop volume)

Notes: Here, routes are ranked in order of highest volumes among observed flights. Although the largest median dollar decreases came from such routes as BOS/LGA (a decrease of $327) and DTW/PHL (a decrease of $270), they are essentially outliers due to the fact that very few flights on those routes dropped in price at all (1% and 0% rounded, respectively).

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© 2014 FLYR Inc. All Rights Reserved. All data, charts, and commentary are provided for informational purposes only. Permission to reproduce the contents contained herein must be obtained with prior consent of FLYR Inc. For reproduction/distribution authorizations or other media requests, please contact:

Andrew Jing FLYR Inc. [email protected] 89 De Boom St., San Francisco, CA 94080