Indeed, the main EK customers from the UK will be :-

1. People heading out to the Far East/Australasia on holiday. They pay the lowest fare, and know that their tickets are not changeable/refundable. There will be little change for them.

2. People flying on business who don't actually know how much a ticket costs. Their corporate TA sorts out the ticketing. They will probably still pay the Flex saver rate, which won't change much from the old Flex rate.

Those caught in between (like most of us on here!) are the ones that will be hardest hit.

I fly EK a couple of times a year, normally using miles for either a Y-J or J-F upgrade. If I want to use an upgrade with the new fare structure, my base fare will go up quite a lot (I suspect).