Originally Posted by
makfan
I guess I understand airlines wanting to protect their fare classes by not allowing people to buy the cheap off hour seat and then standby on to the popular peak seat, but a seat going out empty has no value. A seat released by letting someone standby has some potential value.
Airline revenue management people have a tremendous amount of historical data at their disposal. Yes, an empty seat has no value but based upon the policies in place, the amount of increased revenue from protecting fare classes must exceed the value lost from empty seats. If that were not the case, the policies would make it easier to access empty seats.