Seeking ticket on sold-out flight
I'm aware that about a day or two before a flight takes place it sometimes happens that a flight is sold out, only for someone with a confirmed seat on a flexible ticket to then change their travel plans and a seat suddenly becomes available for sale.
Clearly the airline now has inventory (i.e. a seat) to sell at short notice. The fare they charge might be high, but it still needs to be sold if the airline wants the revenue
Yes there might well be someone who happens to be searching the airline website / GDS desperately looking for a seat - and the seat will sell itself, but this is not guaranteed. As email is so common and (almost) free, would it perhaps make sense for airlines to set up a 'sorry this flight is full right now but leave us your email address and we will message you ASAP if a seat becomes free' facility on their website ? If spam / bots are a concern, then it should be possible to limit the feature to customers who have already registered with a specific email address and previously flown at least one flight (i.e. focus on genuine and most likely loyal customers)
Just seems like a cheap way to sell distressed inventory to customers who would probably happily pay a high price