IsleOfMan

I don't think it's that rare. In my last 3 previous jobs I was required to buy lowest coach and often booked 3-4 weeks out. Two of those jobs had a travel coordinator who made all bookings and the other was self-booked through Egencia (Expedia for corporate travel), so there would be very little way around it either (either falsely waiting until no more E/O to book or looking for times/routings without E/O). I'm lucky now to be in a position where I book my own travel through any portal I like, so buying up out of E/O isn't really a problem, but I know there are plenty of business people who this impacts (see other threads on AA O fares for proof).

I saw my first E fare recently on ATL-FLL (clearly a leisure route with ULCC competition), but it was nice that it was clearly differentiated from the lowest full-benefit coach fares... AA would likely capture a somewhat notable incremental revenue gain if they did the same for O, but then again they have the Essential/Plus options that are independent of fare class.

PDXPremier

And let's all keep in mind that while these E fares may be relatively uncommon now and limited to routes with direct LCC competition, with all the recent dismantling of the DL (and UA) frequent flyer programs, now that this fare code exists, DL is fully capable of rolling it into more routes in the future.

WhIteSidE

To be fair, most of my advance travel bookings are for international travel, but I regularly book 2-3 months in advance.

WhIteSidE

Especially if they add reduced pitch seats on some aircraft, as has hypothesized in this thread.

PDXPremier

Wow....that happened pretty quick

http://www.flyertalk.com/story/delta...-ticket-o.html

Points Scrounger

Guess one can use that whopping $20 saving towards checking a bag?