Airline seats are the ultimate 'perishable commodity'. Once check-in has closed, seats on that flight are not saleable. So airlines need to maximize the number of seats they sell, at the highest possible prices, even if individual seats sell at a 'loss'.
I'm sure the roundtrip cost of £75k is not very dependent on load, so the marginal cost of any additional seat occupied is minimal (a bit more fuel burn and some in-flight catering). Therefore any cash raised from concessionary seat sales is a bonus.
At this time of year, SJ will already know that they are unlikely to exceed x% load factor on certain flights, and are selling these surplus seats to concessions - hence the 'Times' offer and the travel industry discounts.
Yes, it will flatter their figures, but it's an essential part of business management/yield management. If they weren't making these offers, especially in the depths of the low season, they would be justifiably criticised for not maximizing yields.
By criticising such initiatives, befree and others seem to be implying that, whatever SJ do, they will not achieve the befree seal of approval (and how many tickets would that sell?
