Re: Why do airfare prices fluctuate over time?

In the past couple years, many of the major U.S. airlines have been
scrambling to offer $231 fares on all kinds of flights, in order to fill up
their planes ahead of the competition.   The result has been (and with
rising fuel prices this is even more extreme) that a plane leaves with every
seat sold--and every one of these full-to-brimming flights loses money for
the airline.

Travel is up--plenty more planes are going out full--why should they lose
money on every flight?  They may as well start high-balling instead of
low-balling, and if there are too many empty seats late in the game there is
always the option of doing some late minute dumping.

One good tracking option is to set up a "fare watch" at Orbitz or
Travelocity where you will get an e-mail if the fare goes down below the
price you specify.  Another related strategy is to purchase the going fare
with an airline that will allow you a credit voucher for the difference if a
fare goes down--and when you hear that fares have dropped for the market,
you can check and see if your booking has gone down too (though the specific
flights you are booked on will have to have gone down in fare--not just a
general drop for your travel dates).

On April 7 I priced a round trip flight for travel on the weekend of
June 24. The price on the airline's website was just under $300. When I
price it today, the price is over $414 for the same flight numbers on
the same day. I can check seat availability at AA.com, and currently the
 flights are less than 50% full.

Anybody have any info why this happens? Any tips for when to find the
lowest price? Anybody think it's going to come back down at some point?

Thanks in advance.