Originally Posted by
jlemon
I'll take a guess at this one based on memory.....
Back in the 70's, it was not uncommon to see the following class of service designations in the Official Airline Guide (OAG): F/Y/K with F being first class, Y being coach and K being economy.
An example of this "F/Y/K" service can be found in the February 1, 1976 edition of the OAG for flights between Los Angeles (LAX) and Honolulu (HNL). CO, NW, PA, UA and WA all offered "F/Y/K" service on the route with CO and WA operating DC-10 equipment, and NW, PA and UA flying B747 aircraft.
However, I believe the only difference between Y and K was the fare as K was less expensive than Y. In most cases, I think that both Y and K passengers flew in the same coach cabin.
Western was also flying Boeing 720B equipment between LAX and HNL as part of their U.S. mainland-Hawaii "Islander" service at this time. The class of service designation for these WA flights was "Y/K". I believe these Western 720Bs were actually configured with all coach seating with no first class section so the only difference was the cost of the fare for Y vs. K.....
Welcome back, Mr. jlemon!
In looking through some of the 1960's National Airlines timetables, Mr. Maytag had also configured NA's fleet with their own version of Y and K class, with several coach names such as, "Day Coach" versus "Night Coach" versus Economy. I concur. It seems to me the only difference between the coach class versus the economy class was the fare and that the coach fares were at different scales according to time of day.
Later in the 1970s, TWA, I think, went a step further to counter the lounge competition coming from the Coach Lounges of AA's 747s and DC-10 LuxuryLiners, and 707 LuxuryJets. TWA added a lounge in the mid-coach section of their 707s. I stand to be corrected but I thought they called this portion of their coach class, "Ambassador Class" but I wasn't sure if TW meant this to be an early version of business class.