Research On Dual-channel Airline Ticket Pricing Based On Passenger Strategic Behavior

In recent years,travel platforms such as Ctrip and Qunar have developed rapidly.Consumers can book hotels and purchase air tickets online through these platforms,greatly facilitating travel,and buying air tickets online has become a common way of purchase.The ensuing issue of air ticket pricing has become the focus of decision-making for airlines and these travel platforms.In addition,passengers are divided into short-sighted passengers and strategic passengers according to whether they are willing to wait to maximize their own utility when purchasing air tickets.For short-sighted passengers,as long as the air ticket price is lower than their valuation,they will buy,and strategic passengers will compare the utility obtained in different sales cycles and then choose the cycle with the highest utility to buy.Strategy Passengers will enter the market in the early stage of air ticket sales in order to obtain higher utility.Therefore,the timing of short-sighted passengers entering the market will cause demand fluctuations in different sales cycles.When short-sighted passengers enter the market early,the supply exceeds demand due to the excessive number of passengers,and airlines increase prices at the later stage of the sale;when short-sighted passengers enter the market later,the insufficient number of early passengers causes oversupply,and the airline lowers prices at the later stage of the sale.According to whether agents provide additional services or not,this article is divided into two sales models.Under the two sales models,two dual-channel pricing models that maximize the interests of airlines and agents are constructed according to the time when short-sighted passengers enter the market.Both pricing models are solved by using reverse induction method.Firstly,the optimal pricing of the two channels is obtained in the later stage,and then the optimal pricing in the early stage is calculated as a parameter,and finally the model results are numerically simulated.Research conclusion: In the dual-channel competition that considers the strategic behavior of passengers,the optimal pricing strategy of airlines and agents exists and calculates;when the agents provide additional services,the price elasticity of the pricing of the agents in the later sales period is higher.Therefore,the price of additional services can be reduced in the later stage to attract customers;when agents do not provide additional services,airlines and agents can obtain higher total profits and achieve a win-win situation with reasonable commissions.