pee:
To my mind, some three months in advance the fares on many routes used to be simply too high, many pax could have decided to buy elsewhere. Thereafter, maybe two month before the flight day, fares do drop significantly... too late for many old customers who got used to act "the sooner the better". Making the impact on yields?
I also believe FR has priced itself too high relying on the belief that people will book anyway as Ryanair is the cheapest.
Travelling regularly from Sweden to Barcelona FR has been the best value for money for me the last three years. This year however it changed as ticket prices were raised from €200 return to €350..
So I booked Vueling for the first time and will travel with them three returns this year...
Later FR lowered the prices so if I booked a July trip in June I would get the "usual" €200.
The pricing policy had obviously changed. Earlier years (at least on the NYO-BCN and NYO-GRO route) you would see a low price when tickets were released. The price would increase slowly and then 3-8 weeks in advance a the usual SALE would be on. In the summer there usually was no sale for the Meditteranean destinations except maybe for the Wednesday very late flight...
Long rant, but I think this policy change has cost FR a lot of revenue...