Many airlines operate on the following model. Imagine the plane has a hundred economy seats. The seats will be split into groups of 10, each group has it's ow

Many airlines operate on the following model. Imagine the plane has a hundred economy seats. The seats will be split into groups of 10, each group has it's own price. Group 1 seats cost 100 dollars Group 2 seats cost 110 dollars ... Group 10 seats are 350 dollars Your group order got the last seats in group N and the first seats in group N+1 This is where the myth of "booking late gets you the cheapest seats" comes from. If an early booking passenger cancels their Group 1 seat it becomes available to buy again and it is still a group 1 seat even if every other seat has been sold. So late cancellations can make cheap seats available again.