Originally Posted by
sailingfun
There is a reason for that. If the flight is canceled all prior booking revenue has to be returned to the passengers. If the flight operates the airline keeps that revenue and the passengers may or may not be allowed to rebook to a later date. That is why airlines are slow to pull down flights but heading to May advance bookings will be much less of a factor.
Except that every airline I can think of has waived change and cancellation penalties for the current time period. Very few, if any customers should be eating the cost of an unused (and thereby allowing the airline to fully keep those dollars) ticket right now.