In message , at 16:55:52 on
Fri, 20 Dec 2013, Graham Harrison
remarked:
A good few years ago an agency in Austin Texas regularly found he
couldn't book passengers on a specific AA flight to Dallas. Then,
immediately after failing to make a booking on that flight someone
asked for a trip to New York which happened to use the "full" flight as
far as Dallas. With a little experimentation the agent found he could
book Austin/Dallas/New York and then cancel the Dallas/New York ending
up with what he actually wanted - Austin/Dallas. It took AA a while
to find out what was going on and a row developed; I can't remember the
outcome in terms of AA vs. Agency.

However, the technical result was what is now called "married flights".
In other words the Austin/Dallas and Dallas/New York flights are now
stuck together in such a way that if you book the connection you have
to cancel the whole connection, not just one of the two flights (either
of them, you can't cancel Austin/Dallas either).

It is therefore quite possible for the Austin/Dallas flight to show
only "expensive" seats while the Austin/Dallas/New York shows "cheap"
seats. What AA started is now an industry standard used by many airlines

My wife used to fly (Platinum) with AA and would sometimes be sold
flights like Austin-Dallas-London [then no-show for Austin-Dallas,
rather than cancel] cheaper than the Dallas-London she really wanted
and used. But AA put a stop to that.
--
Roland Perry