I was looking to book BF award seat to TLV for May 4- and found something very strange- perhaps some of you more experienced FTers can explain. There are two flights from EWR- one leaving at 3:30pm or so, getting in in the morning, the second, late evening flight, gets in TLV at 4 pm or so.
Anyway, I would prefer the late flight, and when I checked the website, it shows that for the first flight there is std award availability, but for the later one- only Easy Pass. Here is my question- when I checked available seats, there are actually more open BF seats on the later flight(10)- vs. the earlier one(6)- however, the std award is available for the flight that has less open seats.
What gives? I am hoping to still get a std. award for a later flight, but how illogical revenue management is? And will waiting longer get me the flight I want as it gets closer to the departure date?
Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom

It's not illogical. It's driven by demand. One flight may have a higher demand than the other, so despite the fewer/more open seats, one is likely to sell more than the other. Just like you want to get on that one flight, probably so do people with cash in their hand...

Further, seatmaps are not an indication of load. Many people don't get advance seat assignments.

CO 90 is the 'premium' flight to Tel Aviv, thus, standard rewards are much harder to come by.