Swift Airlines has a daily return flight from London to Nice. The aircraft for the flight has a capacity of 120 passengers. Swift sells its tickets at a range of prices. Its business plan works on the basis of the following mix of ticket prices for each day's flight:

This results in a budgeted profit of £5,500 per flight, assuming that all seats are sold at the budgeted price. The head office accountant for European routes has advised the route manager for Nice that while the Nice-London inbound leg is breaking even, losses are being made on the London-Nice outbound leg. If profits cannot be generated, the route may need to be closed, with the aircraft and crew being assigned to another route. The route manager for Nice has extracted recent sales figures, a typical flight having the following sales mix:

The route manager has calculated a loss on each outbound flight of £1, 305. She believes that there is a market for 48-hour ticket purchases if a new fare of £40 was introduced, as this would be £5 less than the price charged by a competitor for the same ticket. She estimates that she could sell 15 seats per flight on this basis. This would not affect either the 7-day purchase, which is used by business travellers, or stand-by fares, which are usually over-subscribed. The additional revenue of £600 (15 @ £40) would cover almost half the loss. The route manager has prepared a report for her manager asking that the new fare be approved and allowing her three months to prove that the new tickets could be sold.

Comment on the route manager's proposal.

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Business 30 @ 300 9,000 Economy regular 40 @ 200 8,000 Advance purchase 20 @ 120 2,400 7-day purchase 20 @ 65 1,300 Stand-by Revenue 10 @ 30 300 120 21,000