Subways, trains, buses, private jets, car services and more, they all have pre-paid plans in common for a reason: the providers book a certain line of revenue and the consumers benefit from a pre-purchase discount incentive.  It's one of those really simple and mutually beneficial sales strategies and this idea proposes that it should be adopted by the commercial airline providers.

I'm sure there are many reasons why Jet Blue, Southwest or others have not adopted this, due to the particulars of their business models, but it feels as if one of them has to be able to figure it out and benefit from having been the first to offer it. 

Especially as the airliners will come under more economic pressure, as a result of the general slowdown and the greening of all things industrial, a program that provides them with this line of sight, may help them on both counts.

Now, let's see if theres a market for a program such as this. 

Would you pay for a number of airline tickets, say 4 round-trips, up front, in exchange for a discount, say a free fround-trip ticket, over the course of a year?

Finally, the airlines themselves would seem the easiest sponsor of this idea, however, Expedia, Travelocity and other agencies could adopt it as well.  Or most interestingly, along the lines of what hotels.com did many years back, an independent company could form and could pre-purchase tickets, then re-sell them directly to consumers.  The major hurdle with this model is current restrictions on air tickets for a non-named customer.  Does anyone know why that rule exists?  Is it for security?  Many questions but a profitable business I would suspect down the road as travel become more commoditized by pressure to lower fares and limit services.