VS wrote:
And the relevance of this is... what exactly? You are comparing a
ferry operator with one ship capable of doing ``this open water run
through the inside passage'' (whatever that is) with London-Australia
routes that have a dozen major operators with a fleet of 747s?


This is relevant. For a highly coveted travel date, there is only a
limited capacity of real hard seats on aircraft. And airlines only make
a small percentage available at a low rate. And whenever actaul capacity
is limited on a specific travel date, then you need to handle the ticket
purchasing differently.

In the USA, there has been overcapacity, too many aircraft, too many
flights and that means that US airlines rans flights with unsold seats.
So it became expected to see seat sales during off-peak season. But it
doesn't work that way everywhere else in the world.

Say Delta unions were serious about a strike starting August 1. Would
you wait before buying a Continental ticket hoping to see a seat sale
appear for travel in early August ? Ain't going to happen because the
threath of shutting down of Delta would mean new reservations would go
to the other airlines and likely fill available capacity even before
Delta would shutdown. Forget seat sale and even if you were willing to
pay for business/first, you might find it hard to get a seat on the
flighst you wanted.

And for specific dates where you know that there are never any seat
sales, then it is best to get your tickets early to ensure you can draw
from the restricted inventory of the cheaper seats.