Originally Posted by
itsmeitisss
the seats don't necessarily price high just because it is close to departure. Sometimes a passenger or their employer will pick a higher fare because of its flexibility. Thus someone in Y could have paid substantially more than someone in J and could have purchased the ticket before the person in J too. Pricing isn't all about time of purchase.
I don't think you are getting it... no one is doubting that someone in Y in theory could pay more than someone in J. However, if the day before the flight all the lower buckets are open, it shows the airline is desperate to get more revenue vs. only the higher buckets being available if the airline could tell demand was strong and thus they could get away with only selling the higher seats. Moreover, from a strict RM perspective, even if the lower buckets are left open by the inventory/yield analyst, if the pricing analyst has those lower buckets with strict advance purchase restrictions, then even if they are open, the lower fares associated with those buckets won't be displayed, so again, in my case, the fact that there were low fares available 24 hours before the flight tells me that this was an intentional tactical action because BA's analysts felt that without such low fares, they wouldn't be able to generate enough demand to ultimately fill the flight, though I do think they kinda did an overkill by allowing such massive overbooking with primarily low fares.