Originally Posted by
ANC RED-EYE
Yeah, I can see that being an unfortunate situation. Last minute bookings often do get stuck in undesirable seats.
I've often wondered why airlines don't reserve their comp upgrades until the gate - seems it would be a wise airline that did something like this, may win favor with a lot of high $$ flyers.
-only purchased F and instant upgrade fares confirmed for F prior to departure.
-all other upgrades processed at say T-30 or T-1 hour by the upgrade processor.
This way, the most deserving customers would always get the upgrades: Those on instant upgrade fares, then those with highest status. It would also protect, to some degree, those affected by irrops. As well as allow for the most possible sales of F fares.
As much as the other way probably works in my favor, I think this would be a better system, and allow the airline to be most rewarding to it's best customers. Also agree that it would be nice if elite seats, at least, were held until about T-1 hour...again, for the same reasons.
I've had the same thought. It's fun to know I got upgraded four days before my flight, but it doesn't change anything for me. I still leave for the airport at the same time, get to the airport at the same time, get through security at the same time, etc.
The only thing an F upgrade affects for me is deciding whether to eat before I board the flight. If airlines processed all upgrades at, say, 4 hours before departure, then I could plan to leave my house a few minutes early to stop and eat on the way to the airport (cheaper than in-terminal food!), or I could plan to leave the lounge early and go grab a bite to eat before boarding. I definitely don't need more than about four hours' notice to accommodate that, and even two hours would do fine (although that would make it harder to know whether stop and get something on the way to the airport).
Originally Posted by
golfingboy
In some cases, that will come at the expense of potential last minute Y sales. Part of the reason they process upgrades a couple days out is to free up some inventory in coach to sell more of those seats to last minute customers.
Last minute coach fares are considerably cheaper than last minute F in most cases unless it is a fully refundable Y fare. They'd rather sell more $400-500 one-way Y fares than to leave Y at Y0 and hope customers will pay $800-1500 for a last minute one way F seat knowingly they won't nearly sell as many.
No reason they couldn't link Y and F in their system. If a flight has 4 F seats available and 1 Y seat available, then they can still publish F5 Y5. If someone books 2 F seats, then the fare buckets decrease to F3 Y3. If someone then books 2 Y seats, the fare buckets decrease to F1 Y1. At this point, the real loads are F2 and Y -1, so at T-4 (or whatever), they upgrade the top two people on the list to F, and Y goes out with 1 empty seat (or filled with a standby customer).
The RM systems of at least some airlines already do something similar in other instances, so there's no reason the concept can't be extended to cover this situation.