Originally Posted by
henkybaby
Good guess.
KLM used to have something like book today, fly tomorrow fares. You could book the last remaining seats on some routes at heavily discounted prices (up to 70% sometimes). You really needed to book the day before the flight. I believe it was a success and I used it once or twice just for a pointless return flight to somewhere. I believe the in- and outbound where fixed. Johan is the KLM guru here, he would probably know more, like why they stopped doing it.
I think that it should be directly linked to the strike to ensure that the public sees it as a way for BA to compensate them for the inconvenience, while secretly aimed at improving the loads...
BA seem to be doing this already.
On Sunday afternoon I called the EC gold line (connected to an agent almost immediately) and paid £120 ^^ for a one-way FCO-LHR in ET for travel 26 hours later, on Monday afternoon during the strike.
When I came to OLCI later that evening, I found I had been already allocated a seat in the front (bulkhead) row of ET ^. Operated by a 767, seemed to be fairly full, as some of the other FCO-LHRs that day were cancelled due to the strike.
On-board service seemed to be completely normal (for what it's worth in ET), including the duty free trolley. It was a very good flight, sunny and cloudless skies so good views all along the route, and arriving more or less on time. Very happy experience.