Originally Posted by
daniellam
After flying paid La Premiere on AF and having absolutely loved it, here are my thoughts...
CX should follow what AF does.
1. Reduce the number of first class seats even further (maybe 3 or 4 seats in one row).
2. Limit award redemptions only to those who are in the higher tiers of the MPO program and charge them ridiculously high rates. No award redemptions for Oneworld partners.
3. Encourage passengers who might not want to pay full fare to book at lower discounted and restricted fare fares (with high change fees and cancellation penalties) with advance purchase requirements of 135, 90, 50, 28 and 14 days before departure (the fare is more expensive closer to departure). [That's how I got to fly paid AF F]
4. Have a separate and more private first class lounge at HKG just for first class passengers.
5. Offer superior ground services like escorts through security and immigration while cutting all the lines.
I doubt that AF Premiere is a good model to follow.
it is losing a lot of money but is important for marketing purposes. AF image was atrocious among premium pax given the mediocre hard product.
Also AF only has 76 new F seats on sale in the foreseeable future (19 77W with 4 seats each). CX has a multiple of that and must make it semi-profitable.
I fly about 4 times a year in CX F and always got all seats occupied. CX F is a wonderful reward to all those pax who log a large number of paid longhaul J. Following AF policy to make F award levels outrageous defeats that purpose.
And recently AF changed its pricing policy as planes were flying empty in F (except for pilots family and politicians) with fares that were set at astronomic levels. They now provide all kinds of discount fares. CX has been doing that for a while.