Originally Posted by
av8r316
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It seems to me that the market is making its way back to the old three class configuration. The PE seats and service are starting to look a lot like how Business used to be (especially after being adjusted for Economy/service degradation), and the current Business and First products are getting harder to tell apart. I think there's good demand for PE, while
the C and F products continue to lag given their substantial premium. Personally, I would be OK settling for a good PE option across the ponds given their price level.
The more I think about it, perhaps the battle for upgrades is more of a rebuttal of whY class than it is desire to sit in C and F. I'm curious to hear others' thoughts.
Thank you, both you and the OP and also others here have identified the issue, which is that the market is changing, and pretty fast. There is a huge, still largely untapped as it is relatively new, market for a genuine PE product; for millions like me, paying our own nickel, it is the wave of the future AT LEAST for long-haul -- C/F unaffordable, Y miserable, there has to be a nice middle alternative. It is not about easily available/upgradeable 5-6" extra pitch on 11-12 hour flights, altho that works for domestic US as still others have said; and so the comparison between domestic Eplus and a Virgin-type PE is irrelevant and not the point. The point is, who will begin to cater to my crowd genuinely in the middle, for TATL etc. Right now, I am a bit frustrated at the limited options LAX-MAD for example; only 3 PE offerings -- AF, VS, NZ, and of those AF doesn't get any glowing reviews so far -- and NONE are US-based carriers, so which might be the first to identify the trend and act on it, that's the question. Thanks OP for bringing this up, it's very valuable and relevant right now.