Cutting WGA fares

[jksobonya]

Is Southwest cutting Wanna Get Away (WGA) fares from the next few months of flight schedules? I have been looking up flights and for a vast majority of them over the next month or two, WGA fares are simply not available. I don't believe demand is that high and that WGA have sold out across the board. For PHL > LAS to name one example, the *entire* month of April has no WGA fares except for a select few dates, and May isn't much better. 

What's the deal?  

--Jessica

[TheMiddleSeat]

Could be a glitch, but demand for air travel is very high right now.  I'm guessing Southwest thinks it can sell the flights at higher prices and doesn't need to offer discounted fares.  You could compare prices booking the legs separately, there seems to be more WGA flights available that way.

Here's commentary about the demand being "insatiable"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/2022/03/14/airline-industry-heads-back-to-normal-as-analyst-see...

--TheMiddleSeat

[PDFelter]

Wonder if it is because of the new fare category "WGA Plus"?  an article I read mentioned that was going to be active in 2nd quarter.

[bwallet]

I was just looking at some flights in May, and Southwest seems to have lost there mind. I just bought two trips on United for much less. I guess I'll get status with United as well this year. Southwest says that they know that we have a choice of airlines, but they appear to have forgotten that.

On the plus side, flying out of IAH instead of HOU means free food options at two restaurants from my Chase Sapphire Reserve Card via Priority Pass.

[dfwskier]

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@PDFelter wrote:

Wonder if it is because of the new fare category "WGA Plus"?  an article I read mentioned that was going to be active in 2nd quarter.

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I think that's a pretty good guess. SW probably needs to figure out how many, if any, seats to reserve for WGA+ and until it does that it just stopped selling WGA fares. I suspect the situation won't last too long as people are booking for summer right now.

[jksobonya]

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@TheMiddleSeat wrote:

Could be a glitch, but demand for air travel is very high right now.  I'm guessing Southwest thinks it can sell the flights at higher prices and doesn't need to offer discounted fares.  You could compare prices booking the legs separately, there seems to be more WGA flights available that way.

Here's commentary about the demand being "insatiable"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/2022/03/14/airline-industry-heads-back-to-normal-as-analyst-see...

--TheMiddleSeat

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I read a similar article, and it's worth noting that a competing airline (United) essentially admitted to holding back cheaper seats and selling them at much higher fares:

“Airlines also limited the number of their least expensive seats earlier in the year in anticipation of strong summer bookings.

 

"We didn't pre-sell the summer at lower (fares), we saved the seats and are now selling them at much higher (fares) and we're happy about that," said Andrew Nocella, chief commercial officer for United.

 

Source: Airfares are going up. Blame full planes, not fuel prices 

 

This seems to be what Southwest is doing, too, in some high-demand markets. I mean, even if demand is "high" I still don't think it's pre-pandemic level high - and no one is going to pay $1200 roundtrip to Vegas, not even me lol. 

 

--Jessica

[jksobonya]

Reddit has noticed, so it definitely isn't just me: WGA Fares completely gone, what's with that? 

--Jessica

[dfwskier]

It isn't happening on all routes. I just checked DAL/DEN and DAL/MDW for May. Both have pretty normal WGA fares.

[jksobonya]

Fares are still wildly expensive in addition to few/no WGA fares available. It's really hindering my potential trips that I have planned. I might have to cut out a trip entirely whereas in "normal" times this wouldn't be an issue. 

--Jessica

[dfwskier]

are other airlines the same?