I was reading a couple of days worth of junk email today, and began noticing a trend from the various travel newsletters, and airline deal updates I subscribe to. Seat sales for late August and early September 2009 are on right now.

If you follow the airline industry, you will typically see that sales cover rolling periods. For example sales may cover a month or two of travel dates 4-6 months in advance. Currently sales are in full force on most major airlines for the August through September time frames.

So what does this have to do with conferences and technology? Lets look at the upcoming DrupalCon in Paris for example. It was announced in the middle of February that this year's European conference would be held early September in Paris. I know a lot of people were excited by this announcement... especially if paid for by work! It was also nice to see that it wasn't announced at the last minute, allowing people to secure the time off work, plan for spouses to come etc, and begin pestering bosses to let them go.

Announcing early also allows people to book flights and hotels in advance and to possibly take advantage of seat sales which are extremely common (this year especially) with the travel industry seeing lower loads and falling revenues in 2009. But final dates also need to be announced so that people can begin making plans, and unfortunately if the DrupalCon organizers wait too much longer, many sales will be over!

For example...

NYC to Paris

Air France has various dates available in September for $573 including all taxes and surcharges.

American Airlines & Continental flights start at $663 all in. US and British Airways flights start at $674 dollars and United who is not runnning a promotion right now is $869.

If we look at the difference between the most expensive flight at $869 and the least expensive at $573 that is a difference of $296.

If we assume that 200 people are going to travel from the East Coast to Europe for DrupalCon, that would be a savings of $59,200 to the community if everyone was able to take advantage of the sale, as flights from Cities like Washington and Boston are similarly priced.

LA to Paris

Lufthansa has the cheapest flights from the West Coast at $728 all-in and with United and US coming in at $745. Air France is among the most expensive with a direct flight at $1207 and Delta follows at $1259.

The difference in price for these flights is a whopping $531 and again if 200 people were to start on the West Coast (San Francisco, Seattle and Portland are all in this range as well) heading to Paris that is a savings of $106,200.

Toronto to Paris

Canadians will also be heading to Paris in hopefully high numbers, and the current lowest cost flights are $514 on low cost carrier Air Transat, $581 to $645 on Air Canada and Air France is $609. Flights outside the sale dates on Air Canada are currently $842 including all taxes and fees.

If 50 people travel from the Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal areas, they could save $328 or a total of 16,400.

Vancouver to Paris

Flights out of Vancouver are priced at $659 on Air Transat, $721 on Air Canada, $970 on Air France, British Airways at $1188 and Lufthansa at $1226.

Again if 50 people flew this route, they could potentially save $567 by purchasing a sale fare, totalling $28,350.

Sydney to Paris

From Australia and New Zealand, flights range from $959 on Malaysia Airlines, $1057 on Emirates (and you can take a free layover in Dubai with really cheap hotel deals!) to $1767 on Air France and $2114 on Qantas. For the record I am not even mentioning Singapore, Thai and Lufthansa which have lowest fares of $6716, $7372 and $8341 respectively!

If 20 Aussies and Kiwis come out, they could potentially save $23,100.

Now I know that this might not be a accurate sampling of where people are coming from, and that not everyone will book their flights 5 to 6 months in advance, but if they did, at the end of the day after all is said and done these 520 attendees could potentially save a total of $233,250

I am sure we can all think of other wonderful ways to spend almost a quarter of a million dollars, but wouldn't if be great if by announcing firm future DrupalCon dates at least 6 months in advance, there might be more money in the Drupal Community to fund code sprints, local Drupal Camps, or the Drupal Association itself!

So please DrupalCon Organizers, please let us know the dates as far in advance as possible!

*By the way... even though I am Canadian, all prices listed are in US Dollars.

• Darren Mak's blog