As well as phone 'reservations' having gone, the carrier gets your money upfront - often months in advance of travel. We recently booked for a trip to Australia and there is no 'deposit and pay the balance 28 days before travel' anymore.
The benefit of that huge financial income and interest is cream on the top for ALL carriers. I have avoided working out how much interest we have lost by having a sizeable chunk of dosh out of our savings, a full nine months befre travel.