Originally Posted by
northeastflyer
If BA wanted to truly protect space, they wouldn't be selling seats on these flights. Yes it does loosely protect in a roundabout way, but only because the majority of people won't pay the high fare, but also let's face it, it's fairly obvious that it's about making money.
I often wonder why people see the world in such a binary black-and-white way.
By restricting availability to the full-fare booking classes, BA is protecting space for those who need to rebook because BA won't take the raft of reservations in discount classes that might otherwise have come its way. BA clearly doesn't think that it will need every last bit of space on every flight on adjacent dates - for example, many displaced passengers won't want to travel on an adjacent day and will have to be booked on another airline on a strike day; and some will just cancel their trips. In the meantime, the world continues to turn, and people continue to have important reasons for making new travel bookings even on adjacent days. Why can't BA manage the increased but not overwhelming demand for flights on adjacent dates in exactly the same way that it does (without complaint from the outside world) on any other high-demand flight or date? That appears to be what it's doing.
The way this discussion goes, anyone would think that BA is only allowed to do one thing or the other, and not both at once.