Originally Posted by
gooseman13
But if the operator knows they no longer have the flight available, shouldn't it be taken off of the app at that point in time? I just went through the same thing on stubhub with event tickets, and it's really annoying (not totally apples to apples, I understand).
It is more complicated than that. This isn't big business for operators. Operators don't make money on empty legs, they make money on charters. Selling empty legs are an attempt to lower the loss on the leg.
If you have a network of planes, repositioning can be a logistical nightmare, especially if many of your charters are last minute. Which means they are constantly changing which planes to reposition where. Once you sell the empty leg, however, you can't change that.
For example, I was going to get an empty leg, but the operator simply didn't know whether they needed to reposition the plane to Vienna or Basel. They posted Vienna on the app, but it wasn't confirmed for several hours while they figured out where the plane was going. In this case, they have a choice: post nothing or post their best guess. I would prefer that they post their best guess, even though it may not be confirmed immediately.