There is so much misinformation about 173/174. The truth is, the arrangement between AA and the Research Triangle Regional Partnership is confidential. Nor is the deal necessarily the same today as it was 10 or 20 years ago. People are just guessing about what the deal says -- or are quoting somebody else's guess. Pilots don't have any privileged insight into AA's sales agreements.

I have been flying this route for 17 of the 20 years, and based on many conversations as well as information in the local media, my best guess is that RTRP guarantees seat sales to AA. They don't subsidize them. I'm sure that GSK has its own contract with AA, as many multinationals in RTP do. The details of those contracts are also confidential. Again, based on what I've been able to glean, the deal appears to be that GSK gets a deeply discounted fare in return for a certain level of ticket purchases. This is no different from the deal that multinationals get from AA in general. These deals don't usually allow financial recovery by AA against the buyer if the buyer doesn't meet its commitment, but AA would not be inclined to renew the deal in that event. Nor are these deals typically use-them-or-lose-them. Most corporations would not want deals like that because it encourages too much attracted cost (e.g. hotels) by employees arguing that they ought to travel simply because the marginal cost of the ticket is zero.

Based on personal experience sitting up-front on 173/174, I'd say that GSK employees are the minority. In fact I haven't run into a GSK seatmate in several years now.

Despite the fact that many corporations have cut back on business class transatlantic, 173/174 are almost always full up-front at any time of the year. From April to September they are almost always full in the back, too. October to March, plenty of Y seats.