I'm looking for a flight this Saturday and I have a flight picked out where the availability tool shows F7 A7 Y7 B7... through all of the fare buckets. I would normally be willing to pay for a YUP fare on this flight, but not at the price AA wants for it this close to departure.

My question is this: Isn't the fact that the plane is half empty (with F almost completely empty) and the fares haven't gone down a total failure in yield management - especially when they have passengers willing to pay a decent premium for higher fare buckets?

For this particular city pair, I can book 21 days in advance and get a deep discount coach fare for $185. This same fare 4 days prior to departure is now $600. I can understand this pricing structure when the plane is nearly full: you need to get the maximum amount out of the remaining seats. That is not the case here, however. Smart yield management would continue to fill this flight at lower prices until a majority of the seats were filled.

As it stands now, AA will lose the $800-$1000 I would pay for the YUP and gain a couple hundred (possibly) from an elite using upgrade stickers. Another possibility is that they will fly the seat empty or give the F seat away to an EXP traveling on a deep discount fare.

So why can't/won't AA work on better yield management in these instances? It should be very easy for them to put additional BIS before departure, but it seems like they're locked into a pricing model that serves to punish last-minute travelers at the expense of revenue. Is it possible for me to call AA and ask for a better price from them on the fare basis? I don't think my price is unreasonable - especially since the plane is half full!

Please Note: I'm not angry about this at all. They have the absolute right to price their product as they see fit. I'm merely curious and am somewhat interested in the topic of yield management.