My name is Hrush. I am one of Cleartrip's founders and I'd like to clarify how things actually work.
Firstly, the "X seats left" feature is not an 'algorithm' at all. It is a simple count of the number of 'seats remaining' at a specific price point for a specific flight departure.
In the example illustrated in the post, there is only a single seat left at a price point of Rs. 34,255. This does not mean that there is only one seat left on the flight, it means there is only one seat left at that specific price.
When the search was repeated for 2 travellers, the price per person increased to 35,746, and then increased to Rs. 37,008 per person when the search was done for 4 travellers.
Airline pricing is based on 'fare classes' or 'buckets'. Buckets typically work like this:
1. Each bucket is allocated a fixed number of seats.
2. Each bucket is associated with exactly one price point
3. When there are no more seats available in a bucket, seats from the next highest bucket are displayed and so on
At Cleartrip, we work hard to give our customers the best prices. We never have and never will engage in the "fake scarcity tactics" that this post accuses us of.
I'd also like to point out again that we have a tool tip on the button that clearly reads that there are 'X seats left at this price'.