From Arlene Fleming,
Your Guide to Air Travel.
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Airlines like to play follow the leader. One starts a seat sale - the others match it. One changes a key policy - and others are sure to follow. For airlines, no policy is ever set in stone.

An example of altering policy (in this case to the detriment of the flying public) is with US Airways and its if-you-don't-use-you-lose ticketing policy. And in the copy cat ways of airlines, it appears that other large U.S. carriers have followed suit.

In what seemed an enduring policy of the larger U.S. airlines, most non-refundable tickets could be changed for a fee or rebooked for a later date (again for a fee) as long as the new travel date fell within one year of when the ticket was issued. Although the customer had to pay some form of service charge, at least the value of the ticket was not lost if for some reason the ticket could not be used as booked.

Having this option provided passengers with a benefit that charter airlines (and other low-cost airlines) rarely offer - the entire value of the ticket would not be lost if you couldn't travel as booked, and you would be able to retain the value of the ticket as a credit towards future travel. Further, passengers were not obligated to provide exact dates and flights for the future travel. Airlines may have encouraged passengers to rebook as soon as possible, but they were not forced to do so.