Well it is more difficult to cancel them after.

I wonder if they will use this as an exuse to not refund the tickets.

It looks like the while point is to prioritise holiday flights without the airlines worrying about losing their slots from non use. It should lead to better planning for people and airlines and also to fuel savings. So, on the face of it, it seems reasonable. What would be better is to remove the rules about running flights (when empty or low capacity) to keep slots from being lost.

The alternative is to only half fill planes with fuel, which could lead to all sorts of challenges.