Yield management, also called "revenue management" is the holy grail of the airline world. Airlines around the world place more emphasis on yield management than on any other aspect of their business--according to Robert Crandall, former Chairman and CEO of American Airlines, yield management is "the single most important technical development in transportation management."

Airline yield management is the reason that two people sitting next to each other on a flight may have paid dramatically different prices for the privilege of getting from here to there. It's also the reason that airfares keep changing from day to day and, sometimes, from minute to minute.

The world of yield management is complex with sophisticated pricing techniques that factor in historical performance, seasonality, number of unsold seats on an aircraft and anything else that a yield manager thinks will have an impact.

With its comprehensive visual display of fares, Cleartrip Graphs has always been a great tool for finding the perfect flight when travel dates are flexible. It's also a great way to look at how airlines are managing their yield and where they're doing it.

Take a look at the graphs below:

A volatile graph indicates that an airline is pursuing an aggressive yield management strategy. It's interesting to see how flat the graphs above look. Are India's airlines not pursuing aggressive yield management strategies at all?

See for yourself:

• Mumbai--New Delhi airfare graph
• Bangalore--New Delhi airfare graph
• Mumbai--New Delhi airfare graph
• New Delhi--Bangalore airfare graph
• Mumbai--Goa airfare graph

[via Ram Badrinathan, Travel Analyst & Amateur yield manager]