Originally Posted by
GYEWorldTraveler
The 45k BE award should not exist on this route as it would be an absolute steal and kill DLs profits on the route. A paid BE ticket generates ~$2-3k RT. Enough people pay for it or use the 80k or 100k miles that the market demands. Its all about supply and demand on this market and DL is not obligated to release low level F award seats on any route. The same can be said for the Z inventory on this route....again, it would significantly hurt profits and DL doesn't want to fill the BE cabin with mileage awards or mileage upgrades when they can get a number of paid BE tickets. Imagine all of the people that would be upgrading with miles if they released Z inventory seats.....it would devalue the price of a BE seat from $3k RT to about $600 RT.
All the talk about demand makes sense on paper. But off-peak times when they're dumping a dozen or so BE upgrades at the gate would indicate otherwise. It's possible those are not optimally managed, and it may have been better to release some mileage availability in those situations.
Remember that mileage bookers and cash premium cabin bookers are often not competing with one another. An executive business traveller on this route buying business isn't exactly going to burn miles to save the company $3K.