Originally Posted by
kcaluwae
I cannot comment if the op-ups still are as frequent. I thought the business class cabin on the A350 is smaller than on the A340. What AY did then was use the front part of the business class cabin as "real Business" and the second part were all op-ups. We did not get Business class catering either but for me the most important part were the hard product anyway.
They still do that - and it's not really an op-up. On routes with high Y demand the rear business cabin is regularly sold as Y (hence no J service) and status passengers - AY as well as oneworld - get placed in these seats. On my last two flights to KBV, I could select a seat in this cabin online. I'm pretty sure we'll see this on the A350s in a few years - once they have more of them and use them for destinations like KBV or HKT... The A350 has more business seats than any of their other aircraft types btw - 46 on the 350 , 42-45 on the 330s/340s.
AA does something similar when putting a three-class 777 on domestic routes sold as two-class. Paid F gets the Flagship suites, status pax in Y can select seats in the business cabin (with Y 'service').