Originally Posted by
qukslvr619
Or lets figure out a way to potentially dilute our product and piss off our employees.
I can't see this ending well. While as a passenger I would like the option to upgrade into J and not pay a ridiculously high fee, it basically creates a situation which is much like domestic first. People came to expect an upgrade and avoiding buying the seat outright. Relatively speaking, they seemed to combat this by pricing F at not ridiculously high pricing points to try and offer it as a sell-up. I believe paid F is accounts for a higher portion of the cabin vs the past.
J is priced significantly higher than Y and "generally" doesn't fill up at the same rate. Knowing this, I could see people buying Y and holding out for the option to bid for a seat. Granted there isn't the same guarantee that the bid will be accepted, but it would be interested to see how they manage this in a scenario such as this:
T-72 2 seats in J; of the following scenarios who gets the seat (or what does the airline value most from a revenue perspective):
1) 1K booked on N fare using a GPU
2) non-status passenger booked on T fare offering $750
3) Silver booked on Y fare offering $500
4) RM holds out in hopes for last minute J bookings
As for the employees, one of the last benefits is the ability to pass ride internationally in premium cabins since they typically leave with open seats. There are some people who don't believe that employees should be able to have these seats (I'm not one of them) but lets not get into that. One of the biggest concerns that came up with the "Basic Economy" concept were that employees saw that as a significant impact to the ability to pass ride in already full cabins. The response from UA was that they didn't expect that it would have an impact and it "might" make more seats in F available because Basic Economy passengers would be ineligible for upgrade....ummkay whatever you want to say since the people currently upgrading into F would not be the demographic that would be buying Basic Economy.
Yes, except that scenario 1) is—for proper J seats on international flights—with W+ fare class, which makes the bidding suggestion even more insulting.