Public fare

Public fares or published fares are deals for air seats that are visible to the public and are available for purchase through airline websites, travel agents, metasearch platforms, etc. These fares are also passed to ATPCO, an intermediary that transmits tariffs from an airline to a GDS and is the main industry fare data provider.

Public fares are the opposite of private fares – which are discounted prices that are negotiated between airlines and air consolidators and are not published anywhere. As opposed to private fares, public ones constantly fluctuate according to the airline pricing strategy – a so-called dynamic pricing approach.