Originally Posted by
lightbulbs
I've always been curious as to the economic analysis on the 321T configuration. In particular
- Three class vs Two class. What's the space efficiency difference between how F and J are configured and how much of a price premium does F need to command to be worthwhile?
- How much load factor and price premium the F and J cabins need to command to offset the low density of the plane overall. It basically flies just over half the passengers of a similarly sized 321B.
- Has AA ever released CASM and RASM stats specific to the transcon routes?
- How do the profitability numbers compare JFK/SFO/LAX/MIA? I presume LAX/JFK is the cash cow given the entertainment labor contracts?
- Ultimately did AA make a good choice compared to the configurations of DL, UA, B6?
- Does AA make much/if any money on the advance O fares in Y? Flying across the country for $130-140 seems to be a pretty good deal.
You ask a bunch of questions that can not be answered with publicly available data. You can spend a lot of time reading anecdotes, and reading 'analyses' offered by people who clearly never took even an intro to econ or business analysis class.
AA is a big carrier with lots of fleet flexibility. The
observed facts that they haven't significantly changed the model - 3-class 321Ts and route frequencies comparable to what they started with a few years ago - suggests they're satisfied with it.