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Old Jul 28, 2008, 3:30 pm
  #144  
J.Edward
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Originally Posted by TMOTEE
I guess the point I am trying to make is why is CO pushing NO capacity reduction for a new BF seat ? Maybe they sell alot more seats than I imagine.
I doubt CO - and DL, UA, BA, SQ, etc. - put in extra J seats for grins; rather I suspect the number of J seats to the J cabin/Y cabin real estate ratio is thought about rather closely before any decision is made. The point I'm getting after is I think CO anticipates selling 50 seats (assuming the J cabin remains at 50 seats) and does not want to encroach upon the Y cabin to put in either more J seats or the same number of J seats with a larger footprint.

Also any failure to meet demand will come out at the high end of the fare spectrum (i.e. someone wanting to buy a last minute J/D ticket), therefore if CO were to compromise on the seat count they'd pay for it with lost J/D tickets.

Now granted this assumes there's actually the demand to fill 50J seats vis-a-vis whatever the reduced seat count would have been with a larger seat and it also assumes the revenue from the "lost" seats could not be made up by charging a premium for the product. I can't speak to these two points (as just don't know what the demand is like for the majority of C/J customers) but Larry has said repeatedly people want lie flat...but not at any extra cost.

And two the latter point one would assume maintaining the seat count without encroaching on the Y cabin allows CO's current cost structure to be preserved and a lie flat product offered to customers without a large increase in cost or the potential to leave revenue on the table.

<shrug>
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