The load factors are up due to several reasons:
1)Everyone who did not go to Europe last year due to Kosovo is going this year.
2)Europe (Italy is "sold out") has lots of special year 2000 events going on.
3)The strong dollar is tempting more people to go.
4)The airlines are putting more aircraft back onto their Asia runs, shrinking seat inventory across the Atlantic.
While deals are much harder to find, sometimes you can get still get lucky. Had a friend who wanted to go from Seattle to London for 3 months this summer and her local travel agent told her no dice (flights are full/and or cost would be $1800). I called Canada 3000 and they had a fare (for the dates she wanted) for $438 return!!!!