Competitive fare monitoring that brings pricing the five rival moves worth money each morning, with the captures that prove them
Each morning, the five rival moves worth money, with the captures that prove them.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Competitive fare monitoring — also called airline fare monitoring or competitor fare tracking — is how an airline pricing team watches rival fares, filings, schedules and products by market and decides how to respond. Competitive Fare Monitoring puts eight agents on the overnight work: they shop and check every capture, tie each change to the departures it competes with, estimate the revenue at stake and write a five-market morning brief, and the pricing manager decides with a reason.
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Rivals file and change fares all night, and competitive fare monitoring is how a pricing team finds the few moves worth answering. By 6:30 am each pricing analyst has a vendor grid of fare observations from the airfare price intelligence feed and a filed-fare report for 40 to 60 markets. They filter out markets with no overlap, fares that reverted, dates outside the window, then screenshot the shops as proof, pull the RM forecast and bookings, and work out by hand which of their own flights a rival's move actually touches. The short list reaches the pricing manager around ten, and decisions get made in chat or email.
Each shortcut costs money. A real fare cut seen a day late means the booking curve has already bent. A phantom fare — a peso price read as dollars, a cached page, a price without taxes — gets matched for nothing. A full-market match where only three departures compete gives away revenue on flights that were never at risk. And a response with no written reason, or one that reads as a message to a rival, is a problem for counsel long after the fare has expired.
Estimated split for one analyst's markets on a typical morning, by hand and with the solution.
Eight agents shop, check, size and explain every rival move; the pricing manager decides and the filing team files.
Thursday, October 15. Overnight, Pinecrest Airlines cut its 21-day Main fare from Chicago O'Hare to Miami. Here is how Corvane Airways' pricing manager works it with the agents — asking, instructing, approving — screen by screen, in the working solution.
The agents shopped 186,400 times on 4 channels against 6 rivals. The brief Celia Marquez opens reads: “Overnight, rivals made 2,184 fare changes in 412 of our markets. 37 matter; 5 need you today, worth an estimated $1.09M.” Each market is one line with a fare ladder, the suggestion and the revenue at stake — ORD–MIA first at $412K. A banner says what the brief may miss: Kestrel Air's offer feed was rate-limited from 1:12 am.
“2,144 set aside, each with a reason · 3 suspect captures excluded · 32 on the watch list.”
ORD–MIA opens on what the agents suggest: match $149 on the three head-to-head departures, all days, travel Oct 29–Dec 17 — $251,000 revenue protected, $96,000 dilution, $155,000 net, 78% confidence on 2,940 forecast passengers. The fare ladder puts every product side by side, all-in one way: Main 21-day is $184 for Corvane against Pinecrest's $149, which was $189.
“Over $150,000 of dilution would go to the Director. Agents never file.”
Only three of Corvane's twelve daily departures leave within 45 minutes of a Pinecrest flight and within 20 minutes of its flying time: CV 1184 at 7:05 am against 7:20 am, CV 1191 at 1:15 pm against 1:00 pm, CV 1196 at 5:55 pm against 6:10 pm. The other nine leave 50 minutes or more away, so a passenger choosing on time would not switch — matching there only gives revenue away.
The $149 was captured at 2:14 am on Pinecrest's website, at 2:16 am on a travel agency site and at 2:19 am in the GDS — $128.37 plus $20.63 of taxes and fees, fare basis LA21PX, on all 14 Pinecrest flights. All 42 captures were re-shopped at 2:41 am, 42 of 42 within $1, and they match the 12:58 am public filing.
“Every capture, filing and input the agents used, time-stamped and kept with the decision.”
Of a 1,200-capture sample, 1,195 re-shopped within $1. Three suspect captures were excluded, each with its reason and the re-shop that replaced it: a $41 ORD–MEX fare that was MX$812 read as dollars, a $49 ORD–LAS price from a cached page served at 8:12 pm, and an $84 ORD–BOS price without taxes where the website shows $109 all-in. Any of them can be restored by a person.
Jordan Ellery, who owns the market, had noted that weekday mornings on CV 1184 are mostly corporate. Celia types “Match weekends only.” The Response advisor reads the RM forecast by day of week and rewrites the proposal: Fridays to Sundays on the three flights, $41,000 estimated dilution, $168,000 protected, $127,000 net, 84% confidence — inside her $150,000 limit.
“That keeps 82% of the net benefit for 43% of the dilution.”
Celia asks to end the match when Pinecrest's sale ends. The Fair-play checker blocks that version: a last ticketing date of October 31, the day the rival's sale ends, ties Corvane's filing to a rival's dates. It explains why and offers the compliant version — keep Corvane's own season, travel Oct 29–Dec 17, and re-check Pinecrest's fare every night.
“Approval is blocked for this version.”
Celia drops the date. The checker re-runs: public data only, no footnote, ticketing date or fare code that refers to Pinecrest, $149 shown all-in with taxes and fees, above the $99 floor and inside the manager's limit. Four of five rules pass; Corvane's own reason, recorded when she decides, completes the fifth. Beside it, every agent's step is listed with its time and source.
She approves matching $149 on CV 1184, 1191 and 1196, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with reason M1 — protect share on head-to-head flights. The other choices are named too: M2 defend a named corporate or agency account, M3 a short response while we watch the rival.
“The agents prepare the request; Owen Pratt files it.”
FAR-1015-01 goes to Owen for the 1 pm distribution: $149 one way all-in, Cat 2 Fri–Sun, Cat 4 CV 1184, 1191 and 1196, Cat 5 21-day advance purchase, with the captures and the filing attached. On the same screen, FAR-1014-03 for ORD–PHL waits for Graham Whitcombe, because its $182,000 of dilution is over the manager's limit.
The same overnight move, seen by the five people who carry it — what their morning looked like, and what it looks like now.
Eight agents shop, check, size and explain every rival move; the pricing manager decides and the filing team files.
Shops rival fares on airline websites, travel agency sites, GDS and NDC for 412 markets and time-stamps every capture all-in.
Reads the overnight public fare filings for the six rivals: fares, fare basis, sales and travel dates, and the ATPCO fare rule categories behind them (Cat 3, 4, 5 and 15).
Reads schedule filings and product attributes — routes, frequencies, times, bags, seats and fare families — and prices product changes all-in for a passenger with a bag.
Re-shops anything odd — currency, cached page, missing taxes — and samples 1,200 captures a night for accuracy.
Ties each change to the Corvane departures it competes with and estimates the revenue at stake, with every input shown.
Proposes match, hold or raise with the reason, the dilution, the revenue protected and its confidence, and rewrites the proposal on instruction.
Checks each proposal: public data only, no signal to a rival, full fare advertising, Corvane's own reason recorded.
Writes the morning brief, routes alerts to market owners and answers questions with citations.
Decides with a reason; the director above $150,000. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask in plain words, or tell the agents what to change. Every answer cites the capture, filing, schedule or forecast it came from, and decisions stay with the pricing team.
Why only three ORD–MIA flights?
Only CV 1184, 1191 and 1196 leave within 45 minutes of a Pinecrest flight with similar flying time. The other nine are 50 minutes or more away. Those three carry 2,940 forecast 21-day passengers.
How sure are we the $149 is real?
Very: captured at 2:14 am on Pinecrest's website, then on a travel agency site and the GDS, all-in in dollars, and re-shopped at 2:41 am, 42 of 42 within $1. It matches the public filing.
Which markets are waiting on an owner?
ORD–LHR: Sam Okoye, $286,000 at risk, 2 h 10 m into a 4-hour clock, alert not read.
What did last week's responses earn?
31 decisions; an estimated $1.42M protected for $390,000 of dilution. The best was ORD–MCO weekends: share 44% → 47% in 7 days.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
What reaches the brief and what the agents may suggest are settings. Thresholds can be tried on last week before they change, and every change goes to the Director of Pricing and onto the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Impact to matter | $25K | Any amount; below it a change is set aside with the reason “below the impact threshold” |
| Head-to-head window | 45 minutes | Any number of minutes between a rival flight and ours |
| Flying time difference | 20 minutes | Any number of minutes of elapsed time |
| Reversal window | 2 hours | Changes reversed inside it are set aside |
| Markets in the brief | 5 | Any number; the rest go to the watch list |
| Suspect-capture rules | Currency check · page age ≤ 3 h · all-in price | Owned by the competitive intelligence analyst |
| Fare floors | Domestic Basic $99 one way · long-haul business $2,200 round trip | Never suggest a fare below them |
| Manager approval limit | $150,000 estimated dilution | Above it the Director approves |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data (dollar impacts there are the solution's own estimates from the sample RM forecast, with inputs shown) · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate of where the morning goes · “typical” = published figures (Airline Tariff Publishing Company, via Wikipedia — about 18 million fare changes a day and 446 million active fares for more than 440 airlines). 14 CFR 399.84 and the 1994 US Justice Department consent decree on airline fare filings are named as context only. Corvane Airways, Pinecrest Airlines, Zephra Air, Lumen Airways, Sunvista Airlines, Kestrel Air, Ambergate Airways, flight numbers, fares and the people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Competitive fare monitoring — also called airline fare monitoring or competitor fare tracking — is how an airline pricing team watches rival fares, filings, schedules and products by market and decides how to respond. Competitive Fare Monitoring puts eight agents on the overnight work: they shop and check every capture, tie each change to the departures it competes with, estimate the revenue at stake and write a five-market morning brief, and the pricing manager decides with a reason.
Most use an airline fare tracker that shops rival fares on airline websites, travel agency sites, GDS and NDC, and they read the overnight public fare filings and the schedule and product feeds. Here the Shop collector turns that airline fare shopping data into time-stamped, all-in captures, the Filing watcher reads the fare basis and the ATPCO rule categories (Cat 3, 4, 5 and 15), and the Schedule and product watcher prices bag and fare-family changes all-in.
The Capture checker re-shops anything odd and a sample of 1,200 captures a night. A price in the wrong currency, from a cached page or without taxes is excluded with its reason before anyone sees it, and a person can restore it. In the sample night, 1,195 of 1,200 captures re-shopped within $1.
Often not. The Impact analyst finds the departures that really compete — within 45 minutes and 20 minutes of flying time by default — and shows why the rest are not at risk. On the sample market, matching three flights on weekends was estimated at $41,000 of dilution, against $96,000 for matching every day.
It can, which is why the Fair-play checker runs on every proposal against rules your counsel owns: public data only, no footnotes, ticketing dates or fare codes aimed at a rival, fares shown all-in, and your own reason recorded. A failed rule blocks approval. The 1994 Justice Department consent decree on fare filings is the context for those rules.
No. The agents suggest and never decide or file. The pricing manager approves, edits, holds or rejects with a reason code, the Director of Pricing approves above $150,000 of estimated dilution, and the approved decision becomes a fare action request the fare filing specialist files.
Yes. The impact threshold, head-to-head window, reversal window, brief size, suspect-capture rules, fare floors, approval limits and fair-play rules are settings. Threshold changes can be tried on last week first, and every change goes to the Director and onto the audit trail.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your pricing playbook, market list, rival sets and the fare, schedule and forecast feeds and airline pricing software you already have — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. Setup ends with a shadow run on past nights, compared with what your team decided, before anyone relies on it.
One more point of revenue per flight, and no seat change posted without an analyst's yes.
1-min demoAirline Fare FilingEvery filing shopped before it publishes, so a mistake fare never reaches a shopper.
1-min demoAirline Network PlanningEvery route tested on demand, feed, fleet, rivals and slots before it reaches the plan.
1-min demoWe'll run Competitive Fare Monitoring on a sample of your own markets and a week of past rival moves.