No direct comment on the thread, but airlines as a whole are becoming much more efficient on "specualtive bookings" and cncling them out. No show rates used to (years ago) be buoyed up by people who book and never ticket. First rules were added that made anything Q and below cncl at midnight (or was it below Q) if not ticketed, then 3rd party software was bought/licensed that goes thru and looks for duplicate name/date bookings. The net result is a much more tighter no-show rate at departure, more accuracy and less variability in the overbooking, and fewer seats wasted on those that do not ticket.

A no show at departure time is one less seat that can be sold (but a change penalty generated depending on the fare rules) but an unticketed reservation is money that is just plain lost. Also, duplicate space is a seat that may eventually get back into inventory, but may not be there at the time someone else wants to buy it. Maybe they may a higher fare, or maybe the buy an equal or cheaper fare on another airline and that customer is lost.

Small efficiencies are what drive modern society. A booking or 2 on each flight, times thouseands of flights per day, hundreds of $$ per seat, and 365 days a year adds up to millions of dollars in potential lost revenue.


How that applies for the OP situation, you all can figure out on your own, but if Toyota can save huge money by placing their riveting machine at a more appropriate height for the riverter, airlines can use to tweak their available selling inventory to do the same thing.