I have to disagree. For many years, AA flew widebodies between JFK and LAX with more than 10F and substantially more than 20J, sometimes as many as 11 frequencies a day. For the past decade or so, AA has flown 9-11 daily flights on 762s with 9F (became 10F a few years back) and 30J, so AA has reams of data on how many F and J seats it can sell.

By increasing frequencies to 13 daily on the JFK-LAX route, AA is now flying more F than it did last year, but then again, UA has completely abandoned First Class, so it's reasonable to assume that AA could sell more F than it used to (keep all of its paid F demand and attract at least some of those who used to buy F on UA).

I'm confused as to how the ratio of premium seats to economy seats is relevant. Buyers of F and J couldn't care less whether there are 10 or 200 economy seats behind them. AA simply decided to fly A321s, which feature trip costs (fuel and maintenance) that are about half of the trip costs of the 762s they replaced. Since AA didn't want to give up its paid premium customers, it didn't reduce the F seat count and made up for the smaller J cabin with four extra daily flights.

With VX, B6 and DL all vying for the low-fare seekers between JFK and LAX, it's logical for AA to surrender some of the backpacker crowd to those airlines, while offering enough MCE and main cabin to retain the very loyal AAdvantage customers and those who value frequency. AA has merely given up on the Kayak customers.

Perhaps you're right, but I have to imagine that Arpey and Horton had the benefit of more than 20 years of actual sales data on which to base the decision to configure the 32Bs.

I'm fairly confident that the B-list celebrities (next to whom I've sat on many transcons over the years) don't see 2 x 2 business class as any kind of reasonable substitute for AA's new F. Notta chance. I'm not talking about the people kicked off American Idol who have occupied plenty of F seats since 2002 as they travel to and from NYC after elimination from that show, I'm talking about old Hollywood and Nashville money who buy their own F seats on AA's transcons.

Four or six F seats? That means on busy travel dates, AA wouldn't have enough F seats to meet demand. Having 10 per flight minimizes those "sold out" dates and allows AA to make good on its long-standing "promises" to provide premium cabin seats for mileage redemptions and upgrades.

AA's average O&D fares provide some insight on AA's success on JFK-LAX; in the third quarter, AA flew an average of 692 O&D passengers each way, every day, at average fares of $520 each way. jetBlue? 567 O&D passengers each way at average fares of just $287 each way. The difference in the average fares is attributable to AA's premium cabins, as AA did not achieve any yield premium in the economy cabin (economy fares are economy fares are economy fares between JFK and LAX). In addition to the 1,384 daily O&D passengers, AA also flew a lot of connecting passengers, filling those 762s to the brim. Among all the competition, AA has the largest market share of JFK-LAX local traffic.

Parker might change things, but JFK-LAX is one route where AA's way of doing things has worked very well for many years and paid off in spades. The only issue in recent years has been the extraordinary trip costs of the aging 762s. Now that those costs have been eliminated, AA's average fares on this route should only increase (especially since AA eliminated 56 low-fare economy passengers from each flight).