Opinion The Tripologist April 27, 2026 — 5:00am Imagine you’re sitting in an economy class seat in the middle of a row of three seats with a stranger on either side. Such is the segmentation of air ticket pricing these days, it’s likely all three of you paid a different price for a seat, and you just might have the nagging thought that one of them might have paid less than you did. Why does that happen? Maybe you paid more because you live in a posh postcode? Or was it because you logged into the airline website a couple of times before hitting the “book” button? If that’s the case, it’s what’s known as surveillance pricing, setting a price on a commodity tailored for a specific client. In a response to a post on X, Jetblue suggested deleting the cookies and cache from your web browser to get a cheaper flight. iStock Do airlines use surveillance pricing? Surveillance pricing is the practice of charging customers different prices based on location, age, gender and spending patterns.…