Who Decides Airline Schedules and Prices?

[spratleyj]

I’m currently a student who is interested in how airlines come up with flight schedules/prices, etc. Do they typically have people in-house who make the decisions? Do they hire outside firms? Or do they merely buy a computer program which does it for them? Also, I would be interested in anything you could tell me about the type of job associated with it – as in job responsibilities, pay, training required, etc. Also, is this a field where there is a lot of room for growth/improvement or is it pretty much set? Lastly, if you could point me towards any general resources (websites, books, etc) that would be terrific.

 

[kote]

One group that would work on these types of problems is operations research analysts: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos044.htm. An airline might have a team of analysts working with various programs and statistical packages etc. Operations managers, working with marketing, would then make the final decisions on how to set the schedules, and the marketing team would decide how to price the tickets relative to the costs of each flight.

The managers involved in this sort of thing will have similar backgrounds and responsibilities as industrial production managers: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos016.htm. For marketing see http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos020.htm.

Because marketing and operations management are general business management type roles there is room for growth up to whatever level you can get to. Operations research is more technical, but it can also provide a great base for moving to more general management.