Originally Posted by
ernestnywang
Sure, if there are manual fine-tweaking of the availability spread based on query reportings, no one can stop them. This is possible. I would not completely rule it out. You however said in your previous post,
And this is the part I have serious doubt on. Even if this "AI" is not developed by Amadeus, it would need to be well-integrated with Amadeus to make it happen (for those airlines that use Amadeus).
How do you know the overall availability didn't decrease. Why do you assume a booking definitely has seat assigned? Seat maps are not always a reliable indicator of seat availability. It is also possible it was a coincidence: LH simply decided to change the availability of the particular flight combination due to other reasons, unrelated to your search.
I have no doubts the airline has a log of searches tied to IP address and possibly FFP number. Since you said there will be no proof on whether this affects fare availability and said there will be believers on both side, I can't say much at this point. I however must point out there is no such thing as "fare basis availability within a fare bucket." A fare (identified by its fare basis) is either filed or not filed. A fare bucket either exists or don't (with married segment control considered). If there is a fare (with all rules including but not limited to advance purchase, etc.) and the fare bucket is available for the point of sale, origin, and destination (taking into account of other flights in the PNR), the fare can be used. You will not run into a situation, using CX as an example, where V class LIGHT's availability got taken out, while V class ESSENTIAL remains available.
Thank you for clarifying.
In my brief, and incorrect, reference to fare basis, I was trying to say something a bit different.
Some of the cheapest fare buckets have some very cheap fare bases with lots of restrictive conditions (advanced purchase, duration of trip,..) attached. When this fare bucket is unavailable and you are pushed to a higher fare bucket, some of these attractive but restrictive fare bases do not exist and you are pushed to a much higher price. Again, I don't know with CX, but that was certainly my experience with AF.
As far as the interaction with Amadeus, I fail to see the difficulty. It is the airline yield management software that decides on fare bucket availability. That is instantaneously updated on Amadeus.