<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by edi-traveller:
Is there not a trades discription thing here that is being broken.
I was pricing some tickets using the sabre tool and all the first three flights each day from EDI-LHR for the next two weeks are all J9 BC HC KC.
I went down to LHR a couple of weeks ago on the last flight of the day - only J available - and the A320 had about 40 people on it.
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Trades descriptions? No, not at all. You can't force BA to sell seats at a given price. Remember, the fare buckets are like chinese walls - they are quite moveable. 9 doesn't mean 9 seats at all. It means 90% chance of the bucket being available should you wish to book it. I've seen inventory disappear before my eyes...
It often makes more sense, and yields the airline far more money, to sell 5 seats at a very high flexible/late/must-travel fare, than to sell 20 seats at high discounts. It also means faster check-in, perhaps fewer cabin staff, less fuel, fewer baggage handlers etc. in variable costs.
In a word - more (or same) money, but lower costs. That's how airlines squeeze the last few pennies out. And that's why there's often less than 1% in the difference between massive losses and massive profits.