Management may be looking for ideas, but they aren't suicidal.

It would simply be too easy for those of us at E and SE to walk over to UA, and start using the upgrading privileges over there to fly to Europe and Asia. It really is no great problem for me to head to Seattle and pick up the UA flt to NRT or to fly to SFO to pick up SQ or UA to HKG. Similarly, the flights to New York or Washington would get me onto the UA flights to Europe.

I simply don't see this as a realistic proposition. They cut back upgrading for Prestige/Elites to Europe this year to cut back on upgrades. If that is not enough, then they simply have to restrict the C inventory.

If route controllers are not sensible enough to hold back J seats for expected demand, then the cure for the inventory problem lies there, not with SE's.

And in a similar vein, why did they get rid of the extra 12 J seats on the 340's and the extra 20 on the -400's? If demand for J/C is that high, they surely it would have made sense to leave at least some hulls with the extra premium cabin.