From the Wall Street Journal:
Airline pricing is something consumers find maddening, but it makes other businesses envious. Many businesses would like to segment customers into different groups, with different prices based on ability to pay, says Jan Brueckner, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, who studies the airline industry. Grocery stores try with coupons, but airlines have taken this model to an extreme. "It's as if the prices of cornflakes were being changed hour by hour on store shelves," said Dr. Brueckner.

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