Inventory Management gone Crazy!
 

OK, so the flight I am looking at shows up like this on ITN:

18:50 New York (JFK)
6:50 (Next day) London (LHR)
F5 C9 D9 Y3 B3 M3 H2 Q0 V0 W0 S0 T0 K0 L0 G0 A4 Z9 E0 U0
Non-stop
3452

aka almost totally sold out! However, on the seat map, Y is almost totally open, and calling UA says there are 60 seats left. What is going on!? Why does the inventory show 3 seats for sale, when the cabin is empty?

Thanks in advance

744

Not everyone is smart enough to get an advance seat assignment before hand, hence even though flight might be (almost) sold out, the seat map is wide open. The 2 don't always corrolate.

I wonder if UA meant that there were 60 unallocated seats to chose from rather than there being 60 seats left to sell.

Definitely not the latter, simply because by looking at the availability screen, it only shows Y3 - that means there are only 3 seats they're willing to sell. This flight, due to overbooking practices, is likely already sold beyond capacity, but not to the point where no more seats are willing to be sold.

Given that school is finishing, one possibility is that there is a large group (kids, tour group, whatever) without advance seat assignments.

I don't have proof but I have a (conspiracy) theory that AA/UA are creating an "artificial" shortage of seats to Europe this summer and metering out a few seats at a time at high fares to feed to the perception of fully booked flights. A few of the flights I have been following, keeps getting filled up in seat assignments slowly but the inventory stays stuck at Y3 B3 etc. I find it hard to believe that it is just seats getting assigned slowly.

Like all conspiracy theories, it has a strong possibility of being wrong, of course. :)

I believe you're right. I have noticed the exact same thing on Asia flights lately.

Well I believe so too because I have a NRT-ORD flight next week and I've been regularly monitoring seat availability on the availability tool.

3 weeks before the flight the availability was something like
Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 V2 W0

then around 2 weeks before the flight it was something like
Y2 B0 M0 H0 Q0 V0 W0

7 days before it was
Y9 B9 M2 H2 Q0 V0 W0

today it's
Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 V9 W9 ;)

So I believe they're playing on the availability, maybe targetting people who'd make up their mind about 2 weeks prior to the flight and suggest only Y is available?

It will probably be a rather full flight and I'm in E+. I hope I won't have anyone sitting next to me. And I'm crossing my fingers so that my connection at ORD will go well...

I saw the same thing happening last December and early this year.

My Christmas flight was all zeroed out - except Y2 - then all of a sudden more inventory showed up. This happened a couple times. This spring I was hoping for a bump - Y0 three days out - but on the day of the flight there were now Y3 seats.

I don't think it is anything new.

Here's one possible explanation:

Transoceanic flights often have groups booked (but not ticketed) in large numbers, and which relatively close to departure either cancel or just don't materialize. The rate at which groups actually materialize is startlingly low. You can imagine why - here's an example:

It's February 1 and a group of 50 passengers want to travel from San Francisco to Tokyo on July 1 and are shopping around (as anyone would) for the best deal they can get. During this entire shopping process, this group is actually holding 40 seats on each flight/airline it's interested in. Even if the group comes back to UA two months later and accepts the price, it only has to put down a modest deposit and be required to ticket quite close to departure.

Of course, this doesn't always happen, and sometimes, the 40 seats that the group has held for months, has to be freed up for sale oftentimes way too close to departure.

Airlines don't really like group for these reasons: they rarely materialize and they take up valuable seats without any guarantee they'd actually ticket.

I've noticed the same in the other direction - no remotely competitive UA (or indeed AA) fare in any of the several transatlantic markets I've been looking at recently - I can't believe they're the only ones who are full.

Edited to say that AA has now blinked - seems to be only UA who's holding out

In addition to that there are travel organizers and "consolidators" taking blocks for pushing packages with high margins. But these only explain the sudden availability in many flights of significant blocks.

What is curious is the sudden availability of seats that appear in UA/AA flights corresponding to announced fare sales while prior to the sale day, there might have been only a few seats on Y and B fares. Suddenly on the day of the sale you see availability down to S7 for selected flights on UA with the sale fares being in S bucket. It is not like UA timed the release of blocks by tour groups to design the sale :)

I do suspect there is plenty of inventory management (in addition to revenue management) going on.

This is all quite possible - if the flights are not selling as well as originally forecast, inventory would open up the seats for sales...

I agree with the conspiracy theory....especially regarding flights to Asia. They seem to be zeroing a lot of seats out in all classes only to release them a couple days before the flight.

I am crossing my fingers that this is the case for a flight I have in 2 weeks to China where I'm waitlisted for the upgrade and everything is sold out!! I've been monitoring the flight for a few weeks and it went from having no Y availability with only C and F available to having no C or F available and having Y available. A clever way to sell the more expensive seats...me thinks!

I dont entirely agree with the conspiracy theory, as there are many variables to choosing flights these days (dates, times, connections and obviously different airlines). It makes sense for specific high-demand flights to have less S, W, T, etc fares and more of the higher bucket fares... Supply and Demand. Its not that airlines they are conspiring to scam more money out of us, its just that there are passengers who need to fly, on specific dates and will a premium to do so. If passengers continue to pay for full fare tickets, then we shall see less and less S fares and the like.