Originally Posted by
mother-
None of that has much bearing on reality.
-There are never "enough customers out there" for anything that isn't a fixed or diminishing resource.
-They won't simply find the customers. That isn't how markets work.
+The new ones WILL pay the ticket prices or they wouldn't be new, but that's just circular reasoning.
-Businesses that raise prices without concern for the demand side of the equation do in fact lose business over the long run
-The types of global demand that might be rising have nothing to do with US legacy carriers.
Global demand as a whole is rising, which means that, according to supply and demand, prices will go up. Capacity (supply) is essentially a fixed resource in the short to medium term - in the long term it can grow, but airlines are also cutting back on capacity and growth given fuel prices and other costs.
But last-minute pricing really is a case of limited supply, often monopolistic. For instance, there is only one nonstop flight from DTW to PVG within the next 24 hours with (let's say) 3 business class seats. No more than that. Day to day demand might differ, but it's clearly there. Therefore, prices will be high.
(If you want to consider other flights with stops within 24 hours, they exist too, but they are different products. And even with them, there are still only a dozen or so reasonable combination of flights, all with limited numbers of seats, so again, supply is quite limited.)
They are paying attention to demand as well as supply. It's just impossible to please people who aren't willing to pay market prices.