+1 to what everyone else said. Due to the travel waiver that was in place due to Sandy, if you had called to cancel your flight
in advance, you would have at least gotten a refund for the full ticket (if you cancelled it) and probably could have negotiated flying only the Montreal-New York part at no extra cost, with a refund for the outbound. You may still be able to get this after the fact, but you no longer have the rules on your side. I wouldn't count on it.
Originally Posted by
alessiobaraldi
But most importantly in an economic sense the AA's request that I buy a new ticket was illogical. Why would I have to repurchase a flight I had already booked and paid for, particularly as as it turns out that the flight was indeed half empty. What can justifiably be the economic loss that AA may argue it had incurred?
The fare you purchased probably had an advance purchase requirement and may have had a round trip requirement as well. When you walked up to the counter without a valid ticket (as your original ticket was no longer valid), you had to buy a one way ticket with no advance purchase requirement, in addition to the discount fare classes being available for sale (which they may or may not have been despite the number of empty seats on the plane).
Airlines do this because business travellers are generally willing to pay more, particularly business travellers who don't have the flexibility to book well in advance or buy round trip tickets. AA's revenue management department made the calculation that the revenue they lose by having fewer people fly is (on average) more than offset by the higher fares they can command from business travellers who walk up to the counter and want a ticket. If AA were willing to sell the flight to you for less, they wouldn't be able to command the high walk up fare to those who are willing to pay for it if they feel they have no choice. In fact, you were willing to pay the higher fare, so they did win.
Whether you like that logic is another question, but airlines (pioneered by AA in the 1980s) spend a lot of time, energy, and money researching optimal fares from a revenue point of view.