Kayak adds tool to help fliers compare economy, 'Basic Economy' fares

Economy. Basic Economy. Main Cabin.

As airlines roll out an increasingly complex array of fares just for a seat in the economy cabin, it’s become harder for casual travelers to keep up with exactly what’s included in their tickets.

It’s also become a challenge for online travel sites to keep up with changes from the airlines they’re selling tickets for.

That’s prompted Kayak – one of the United States’ largest sellers of airline tickets – to roll out a new display tool to help fliers know exactly what they’re getting when they buy a ticket from one of the nation’s three biggest carriers. For fliers, it’s part of a change in how coach seats have been sold over the course of the past decade.

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It used to be “a commodity product,” Kayak president Keith Melnick says to Today in the Sky about fares from when Kayak launched 13 years ago. “A flight on American was a flight on American. And the same on Delta and United. If you bought a fare, you got from point A to point B and - at the time - you even got a checked bag.”

“Today, airlines have gotten into what they call ‘branded fares.’ Basic Economy is one of those that’s getting a lot of press now,” he adds.

Indeed, Kayak’s new display comes as American, Delta and United have each rolled out their own version of “Basic Economy” fares during the past few years. American and United have been the most recent, adding Basic Economy on select routes this year.

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The fares – roughly $20 to $40 cheaper per round-trip than regular coach tickets – come with restrictions that vary by carrier. Among the most notable restrictions, American and United will not allow Basic Economy customers to stow carry-ons in overhead bins. (Delta has no such provision). Basic Economy customers also will be among the last to board the plane and – generally – will not be able to select seat assignments in advance. Basic Economy fares will truly be nonrefundable; changes will not be permitted, not even for a fee.

To help guide customers through the purchasing process in this new Basic Economy era, Kayak has been the display to search results from routes where airlines are selling such fares. So far, the big airlines’ Basic Economy fares are being sold only on routes where they compete with no-frills budget rivals like Spirit and Frontier.

Melnick says since the fares are currently available only on “select routes,” Kayak’s new display is “not necessarily pervasive across all flight results right now.”

But it does pop up on routes where the big airlines are selling Basic Economy. For searches that include such flights, Kayak’s display emerges under an airline’s schedule information. The words “Basic Economy” and “Economy” are displayed with an option to “show details.”

When customers click that, Melnick says customers “can expand those to see what’s included” as they scroll through the search results. “Really what a user needs to see is what’s included in those products.”

For now, Kayak’s new fare-display details will be limited to details about Basic Economy fares on the so-called “big three” airlines. But Melnick says the effort is likely to expand, especially with the growth of increasingly specific fare types and the expansion of low-cost carriers that advertise low base fares but charge extra for nearly everything beyond a spot on the plane.

“It will absolutely be an evolution,” Melnick says. “You want to be able to compare across the different airlines and what their basic product is. The goal is to expose all of this information.”

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