Originally Posted by
craz
I just checked AA Nothing NRT-SFO in July except 7/23 and that was HA HND-HNL then AS with a stop to SFO 1 flight in Saver Biz the whole month of July! I searched asking 1 way NRT-SFO so maybe there would have been something if I played AA like I did UA. But fact is AA was no better if anything its worse then UA
Late August had some dates but 1/2 the amount the UA showed me when I played it via JFK and only last week of Aug while UA was showing from 8/17
Could there be something happening that has created a massive surge in demand from Japan to US during that period, but not creating any comparable surge in demand from the US to Japan in the same period?
I know the Japanese like to travel and escape the summer monsoons and heat. And, I know they have "golden week" which is super-peak for travel.
But, what I'm seeing here still doesn't make sense. Especially since it's one direction only. Have the Japanese decided to call it a day, and they're all moving to the US now?
Your observations on AA just add to the mystery.
So I decided to take this up a notch and I joined EF and did a full flight search to look at fare buckets on all airlines.
What I saw was astounding.
Looking at 7/2 through 7/5, I saw that UA 838 has 9 in every fare bucket all the way down to L. Only K-N (bottom 3 buckets) are at 0. They even have Z9 and P9, which is often an indicator of low loads and low demand.
I see lots of low fare bucket availability on JL and DL and NH. None of them appear close to being sold out. But, all of them have less availability than UA. They are sold out in the lowest fare buckets and they have less than 9 in many other buckets.
No indication of overwhelming demand, but indicators suggest UA has less demand than anyone else on the route.
Focusing on that clearly empty UA 838, I flipped over to the screen that shows award availability.
And, what's even more fascinating is that I see a ton of R space! As much as R9 on some routes. I've *never* seen this much R space since $mi$ek took over.
However, I and IN are all at zero.
So, something fishy is going on.
The plane is empty. R is wide open. Yet, I is closed.
Makes no sense.