In article , nobody wrote:

Qantas has every date between Dec 20 and Dec 23 available for $1900
roundtrip or so. Pricey, of course, but it's the lowest published
fare for these dates. Consolidators seem to have the same dates for
less on UA.

How do you know they are the lowest published fares for those dates ?

Looked up published fares for next December in Travelocity.

Are you 100% sure that whatever web site you are using isn't filtering
out fares that are no longer available ?

Yes, I am 100% sure that Travelocity is not filtering out fares that
are no longer available. Of course, these are *published* fares.
For consolidated fares, I'd have to call up a bunch of consolidators,
and it's just too much of a hassle. Sorry.

A different example: this spring, a ferry, the Queen of the North sank
in BC. BF Ferries is stuck with only one ship capable of doing this open
water run through the inside passage, down from 2, and that ship has
less capacity than the QofN. Right now, there is no available space in
September because as soon as it happened, tour operators booked all
available space on all sailings to keep their options opened, and BC
Ferries is now working with them to release seats the tour operators
won't be using on a week by week basis. Those who had booked as soon as
the new schedules were announced would have had assured place on the
date of their choice. Thos who didn't will have to wait until probablty
a few weeks before their sailing time to get a confirmation and this may
wreck their plans.

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?