Looking for cheap flight tickets is easy. There are many tips and tricks on how to do flight booking for lowest air fare. One of these tips which you can often come across online is that of waiting till the last minute for the flight booking. There would be many who would suggest you taking this course since they are of the belief that the airline will inevitably be left with some unsold stock till the fag end. Else, there could be last minute cancellation of flights by the customers which will vacate the seats. These are the two most common held reasons mooted for supporting the last minute flight booking. However, there are some other aspects which actually go against this and these are highlighted here.

At first, it is the airline which might not be very much willing to provide you the cheap flight tickets at the last minute unless it is in really tight financial situation and is quite desperate to have the full occupancy rates. There are solid reasons behind this. The airline might not want the people to keep waiting till the last minute in the expectation that the tickets will be sold cheap. If it provides the cheap flight tickets to the customers on a couple of occasions, it might become a habit with the customers to buy the tickets at the last minute. This might be counterproductive for the airline since the last minute high demand will actually push the prices up and the ticket sales might be affected as a result. So, the airline would prefer to fly with less than the total occupancy levels rather than making it a habit of offering lowest air fare flight booking to customers.

Secondly, the flight booking at the last minute comes with the risk of being left out of the flight. There are chances of missing the flight and greater chances of buying expensive tickets than the low cost ones. This is so because the airlines do practice the yield management and by having earned sufficient revenues, these might decide not sell the remaining seats and instead fly with the vacant seats.

Thirdly, it is when the airlines are quite desperate that the last minute tickets are sold to the people. This might be more of an exception than a rule. So, if you are waiting for the last minute deals, you lose out on the advance booking of cheap flight tickets, which could have provided you with better deals with almost certainty. So, advance booking is more certain to give you a better deal as compared with the eleventh hour uncertain deal. Even the airlines encourage people to buy early rather than late.