Delta moves toward eliminating set prices in favor of AI that determines how much you personally will pay for a ticket

[highplainsdem]

https://fortune.com/2025/07/16/delta-moves-toward-eliminating-set-prices-in-favor-of-ai-that-determines-how-much-you-personally-will-pay-for-a-ticket/

Fresh off a victory lap after a better-than-expected earnings report, Delta Air Lines is leaning into AI as a way to boost its profit margins further by maximizing what individual passengers pay for fares.

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Delta accomplishes this pricing through a partnership with Fetcherr, a six-year-old Israeli company that also counts Azul, WestJet, Virgin Atlantic, and VivaAerobus as clients. And it has its sights set beyond flying. “Once we will be established in the airline industry, we will move to hospitality, car rentals, cruises, whatever,” cofounder Robby Nissan said at a travel conference in 2022.

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“AI isn’t just optimizing business operations, but fundamentally rewriting the rules of commerce and consumer experience,” Matt Britton, author of Generation AI, told Fortune. “For consumers, this means the era of “fair” pricing is over. The price you see is the price the algorithm thinks you’ll accept, not a universal rate.”

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To complicate matters, while industry experts expect the impact of AI to mean more revenue for Delta, the impact for individual passengers is less certain. In the short-term, AI might mean more discounts offered upfront when Delta needs to fill seats, said Leff. Short-term, shoppers might benefit from using a VPN and clearing cookies when browsing for airfares, but long-term, Delta and other airlines might require passengers “to be logged in for purchase of tickets in order to obtain status benefits from an airline, essentially being fully within their ecosystem to gain the benefits of that system (i.e. submit to personalized pricing to get extra legroom seats),” Leff said. Early research on personalized pricing isn’t favorable for the consumer. Consumer Watchdog found that the best deals were offered to the wealthiest customers—with the worst deals given to the poorest people, who are least likely to have other options.

[dalton99a]

1. "The best deals were offered to the wealthiest customers -- with the worst deals given to the poorest people"

[Irish_Dem]

2. The rich will get everything complementary.

The rest of us will pay through the nose.

[Hekate]

3. Fly the friendly skies...

I think I may be done with this form of mass transit — but like millions of others, that leaves me a continent away from dear friends.

[hatrack]

4. I think Delta seriously underestimates how tired people are of being fucked by airlines . . .

Endless, soulless, crust-scratching, turnip-squeezing, shit-breathed greed.

[Irish_Dem]

5. If all the airlines do it, then it becomes a normal scam, like health insurance and everything else.

Americans get used to being scammed quite quickly.

[Karasu]

15. Yes. All this country ever does is normalize the most insane capitalist shit possible.

[Irish_Dem]

16. Citizens from other modern democracies shake their heads at Americans.

For allowing themselves to be so screwed over and over.
No healthcare, education, childcare, paid leave, vacation time etc.
And Americans live in the richest country in the history of the world.

Some Europeans think Americans didn't suffer enough during WWII like the rest of the world.
So dIdn't demand change.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Think Delta is doing something already. I flew them to Costa Rica and back twice earlier thi year. The round trip

economy fare was $660. Went to book my final flight down this month and the same flights are $1320!

[DFW]

17. In Europe, we get punished for shopping around online.

And more so if you call them up.

Often, when I know I need to fly somewhere, I check to see what fares and schedules are available. If I find something I think will work, but want to compare with fares elsewhere, if I come back to the original offer, the price will have increased by 10% to 25%. I don‘t have any way to know if this is true, but it is as if any price inquiry from a certain ip address is immediately communicated Europe-wide so that no airline will ever quote lower, and a repeat inquiry comes back at a higher price than the initial quote.

In my experience, if I can‘t get my reservation done online, I call the airline as a last resort. They often say, „you must be talking about some internet fare. We don’t see them, and we are not allowed to sell at those prices.“A quick inquiry lends credibility to their „we don‘t see them“ statement. The accent of the Air France agent on a recent call prompted me to ask where I was talking to. It turned out to be that major hub of French aviation: Santiago, Chile.

[multigraincracker]

7. Use their own strategy against them.

Delay, Deny and Defend. Start with “I’ll look for a better deal elsewhere first”. Then “I can’t afford your price”. Third “you need to hire better MBAs”.
Be interesting to see how AI responds.

[AZJonnie]

8. You won't be talking to this AI in this way, it will be an opaque, black box type of process, but

Hackers will likely figure out (and disseminate) how to game this bullshit in your favor, if one keeps their ear to the ground to learn the means.

[Rstrstx]

9. Excellent, because I won't pay more than $60

For a ticket to Rio. Let them put that into their algorithm

[jmbar2]

10. What happens to capitalism when there is no ability to price shop?

Completely obscures market price discovery. Ominous.

[progressoid]

11. Hey, maybe congress could do some sort of regulation or....

...just kidding. They ain't doing shit.

[Gaugamela]

12. Someone will offer a counter AI service that hides the consumer behind a VPN

and creates a false online persona giving you the appearance of a cheapskate.

[Initech]

13. What could possibly go wrong?

[Karasu]

14. This shit is fucking end-stage capitalism. There is nothing beyond it. It is greed in its purest, most inhuman form.

This country has completely dropped the ball in refusing to regulate AI. There is no recovering from that.

[DFW]

18. This brings up another major question

Does this mean that in the near future, ALL fares will be immediate payment due, non-refundable, non-exchangeable?

While that sounds like something Trump would support, I‘m betting that would not survive two weeks into the next Democratic administratoon.