I saw this being discussed before and was intrigued. I thought I'd pass on this discussion to those most knowledgeable on this . Mods, please feel free to move this - I couldn't really find anywhere else that was more appropriate for this.

So in this paper, "DYNAMIC AIRLINE PRICING AND SEAT AVAILABILITY", which can be found here, Expertflyer fare bucket data and airline seat maps are used to gauge availability and determine daily bookings.

Obviously, using seat maps can be hugely problematic for this, which is acknowledged in section 2.2 by the author. He concludes, however, that "the measurement error associated with seat maps is likely to be small" upon "perform[ing] two analyses". Do you think this is correct?

Additionally, isn't there also a potential issue with fare bucket data in that airlines often restrict and release fare buckets over time, and there being overlap between different fare buckets?

And could these issues with the data significantly impact the statistical inferences which the author draws?