Originally Posted by Smirnoff
I suspect that losing $5200 on not opening up the availability to cheapo tickets is offset many times over by keeping the fares higher and the product a premium one.
One last minute booker alone would bring in more than that $5200 figure you mention.
I don't understand the comment. The discounted fare on AF/LH/etc. had a 50 day advance purchase restriction (see OP), so it's not an issue of cannibalizing last-minute revenues but expanding the market during the lowest demand period of the year to the leisure traveler (I was originally shopping for WT+ but this fare made me stretch to J--so it worked for the airlines). The last minute booker is still paying full fare; AF just seem to have gotten not only its share of full-fare passengers (arguably smaller than the better BA product) plus the extra revenues coming from leisure travelers who are filling seats that would have gone out empty.
Originally Posted by Smirnoff
And there are plenty of people happy to pay that fare to travel in a superior product.
As the data shows, obviously not enough to fill capacity--and unsold capacity, as anyone who runs a business knows, is generally a waste. Even the highly aspirational Concorde was discounted in multiple ways in order to avoid capacity going to waste.