Sorry Piney And Tom

[KCFlyer]

Just glancing at Tuesday's Wall Street Jounal...the answer for U is on the front page of the "Personal Journal" section. Seems like America West is doing what I've proposed...value price first class - then offer a discount FC fare if the ticket is bought more than 7 days in advance. What are they finding? Well...most tickets are being snapped up in advance. They've seen an increase in revenues of 1 to 2 million dollars per week. And that's only in a few markets. They aren't using "capaciy controls" for the fares...if they sell out, they sell out. Translation - drastically reduced "upgrade opportunities" for elites. This is what I've been saying all along...would you rather have a pissed off elite who couldn't upgrade, or a sold out First Class cabin and a million or two more per week?

Interesting thing from the article:

The fare program reflects the growing struggle by airlines to fill their first class cabin with paying passengers. As companies- and families - become more attentive to the bottom line, the best seats are increasingly being occupied by passengers using frequent flyer miles. Currently, only about 6% of travellers in America West's first class cabin pay full fare. Airlines generally need to fill many times that number of seats with paying passengers to break even with first class; many carriers have consistently fallen short of that goal over the past decade

Do you think US might be one of those carriers?

 

[USFlyer]

FWIW, US has been doing this in select markets. PHL-SEA now is almost always full of people who bought an "A" fare (note, US had been using "F" even for discounted First class seats), and the "A" fare is actually quite reasonable. Since I don't originate in PHL, I book a Coach segment to PHL, add on the PHL-SEA-PHL in A and then a Coach segment home. Then, I upgrade the two Coach segments without needing to worry about the transcon. I can totally justify paying $200 more per week to do this ... $2000 more per week I cannot. UA uses "A" as well for discounted First -- I got to HNL a few weeks ago roundtrip in First for $1200. (Disclaimer: We do have a nice corporate discount with both US and UA, but even without that these fares are still quite reasonable.)