I always get tense when booking my flights on line. I feel that I am waiting ‘to be had’ by some hidden clause and then duly ripped off.

This past Saturday night, I concurrently checked out the prices of four airlines, flying from Israel to the UK. El Al was the clear winner, and so I duly set about ordering a ticket for myself and my good lady. All was fine, when at the last moment I realised that I had made a mistake. As I could not go back one step, I was thus forced to start the process from the beginning.

I zipped through the pages again, until I reached the verification of the prices. Within 120 seconds, the cost of the return trip had miraculously jumped by around US$60. (Well, as somebody once mentioned, we are in the Holy Land.)

The expletives were not slow to emerge. Strangely enough, an hour previously, I had read an article that noted how El Al was ranked 34th out of 42 airlines for operational punctuality. Their CEO is demanding better performance from his staff.

Ironic, I thought to myself: At least my national airline is pretty damn prompt at asking for extra money from me. So, if the company is not worried about its pricing policy, I duly gave them some free publicity and blogged what happened to me on Facebook. That means that not only my friends heard about the story, so did the friends of the numerous people who added a like or comment.

At my daughter’s suggestion, I also let El Al know what was going on via their FB page. Who knows if they will respond, or how quickly?

However, permit me to throw on my hat as a business mentor and coach. There is a much more important lesson here. As a friend pointed out, the price hike was caused by the use of an aggressive algorithm, which many / most / all airlines use.

I wonder how much extra traffic El Al could draw to its website if it actively practiced and advertised a policy of not using such algorithms. In other words, their clientele would feel safer and better protected!

That would position El Al a large cut above their competitors in the skies. It would show that El Al genuinely cared about its customers. As their passengers are always told at the end of each flight, “we know you have a choice”.

The question is does the management of El Al understand the true meaning of that statement?

PS: For the record, I stuck with El Al, booking to return on a different flight which cost the original price I had intended to pay. However, it is inconvenient.