Benefits of Airline Consolidators

Travel industry all over the world has experienced an unprecedented growth. This surge has been particularly beneficial for the international travelers as the market is today flooded with great airline deals, offers and packages. One look at the early airline consolidators and you'd know the sea change the aviation industry has gone through in the past years. The sheer wealth of opportunities that are offered to the travelers of today lies unmatched. Three main types of airline consolidators have existed in the traditional travel markets:

• Wholesale Consolidators: These consolidators do not have direct contact with the customers. They provide the best deals on particular flight routes to local travel agents. Even though the wholesalers operate on low margins, they gain due to the huge volume of sales. They together cater to a large number of travel agents and thousands of travelers, and hence are able to negotiate much better rates than individual agents.
• Destination Specialists: These are airline consolidators who specialize and deal in particular destinations. These specialists are able to negotiate discounted rates from various partner carriers as they buy tickets to a particular route in large volumes. Their offerings are mostly a bundle of flight tickets and hotel bookings or car rental services.
• Online Airline Consolidators: It's a known fact in the modern world that the Internet is the best place to look for cheap airfare and best airline deals. Online airline consolidators have no physical presence thereby lacking the personal attention and service that a traditional travel agent can provide. However, the price and deals offered on the Internet remain unmatched. Cutting the overheads, the cost or rent of a high street shop, and catering to a larger audience on the World Wide Web, the online airline consolidators ensure the lowest of airfares for the travelers.



Airline Consolidators provide travelers with an opportunity to do a flight rate comparison for a particular travel route and for the same time slot. Flight comparison allows travelers to save a lot of time and money by zeroing in on the most cost effective airlines. With the Internet experiencing an all time high growth rate, the number of online airline consolidators too has quadrupled. According to an estimate, in the next couple of years more the online agents will fully eclipse the traditional high street travel agents.




There is a particular yield management system followed by various airline consolidators to decide upon the final airfare. There are variable factors that come into play while deciding on an optimum fare for your tickets. It is the demand for airline tickets for a particular route and the time of the year on the basis of which a particular percentage of rate is added to the base fare. Taking such figures into consideration, demand for particular flights is ascertained and future prices are predicted. Pin pointing on the most optimum time to buy the cheapest ticket is a difficult proposition as the ticket prices keep fluctuating depending on the pull of demand and supply. Last minute deals are not too difficult to get, however, it is still better to book your flight tickets as early as possible.