Fare basis code: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:36, 29 December 2020

Revision as of 13:42, 19 July 2021

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== Booking class ==

Airlines can create any number of booking or fare classes, to which different prices and booking conditions may apply. Fare classes are complicated and vary from airline to airline, often indicated by a one letter code. The meaning of these codes are not often known by the passenger, but conveys information to airline staff, for example they may indicate that a ticket was fully paid, or discounted or purchased through a loyalty scheme, etc.

The first character of the fare basis code is always a letter, and will almost always match the booking class.<ref name="gal">{{cite book | title=Galileo 360(degrees). V1 Course book. | publisher=Galileo Travelport | year=2009 | page=9}}</ref> Booking codes are the identifiers used by the airline's [[revenue management]] department to control how many seats can be sold at a particular fare level. For example, a plane may have 25 economy seats still available and the airline may show it in a reservation system as <code>Y7 K5 M4 T6 E3</code> which indicates how many of each booking class can be reserved. Some codes cannot be sold by agents, and those seats may be reserved for international connections, loyalty programs, or airline staff relocation.

Booking codes were defined by [[International Air Transport Association|IATA]],{{cn|date=February 2018}} but airlines have deviated from the IATA standard and current booking codes are airline-specific.<ref name="gal12">{{cite book | title=Galileo 360(degrees). V1 Course book. Galileo Travelport. 2009. | page=12}}</ref> The same code may have different meanings for tickets issued by different airlines. Many airlines use nearly all letters of the alphabet to allow finer yield management. Nevertheless, certain booking codes have retained the same meaning across most airlines: