Originally Posted by
Fabo.sk
While I would love to see that happen (and would be much more likely to upgrade myself into J as a result), I can see why airlines don't do it - the loss of flexibility.
Earlier this years, I've flown PRG-CDG-AMS on Air France. Same Airbus, either A320 or A321, I'm not sure.
First flight, there were about 2 or maybe 3 rows of Business class. About 2 folks in there. Quite possibly they were connecting to a long-haul in CDG, but that's immaterial TBH.
Got out, walked to the departure level in CDG, got back in in a couple of minutes. 7 or so rows business, almost full.
That's some 30-40 more business pax.than the flight immediately before. In the very same cabin.
And it's not like Y was half empty on PRG-CDG either - I think if the Airbus was configured with "real" business class, it would not have enough Y capacity, possibly even not enough Y+J capacity.
Well obviously the load in the different classes varies significantly. I think here everybody is aware on why European Business Class is only Economy Seats with a seat free in the middle. So that they can vary the cabin for demand. Yet as far as I have seen by the Amadeus porgram the Business seat count is determined in advance (by how many expected pax there are) and rarely changed. Only when there is overbooking in economy for example. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. (Example: If you book a flight on which you see 4 rows of Business Class it's rather certain that flight has also four rows of Business Class.)
I'm not quite sure how fluent that dynamc with Economy - Business Cabin shifting is, I'd be really interested in how it actually works. (and not base my view on it by hearsay like I did above).
But to come back to m point, as the airlines from what I know already pretty much knows with how many seats in what class the plane will fly why not have like 2-3 different layouts you use depending on demand for different routes? I know planning would become much more complicated but other airlines seem to have it work fine. Just look at the american airlines (let's ignore the overbooking stories here for a second as I'm sure they are not only due the lack of being able to shift the cabin class seat numbers) or the gulf ones and even most asian ones. So it does seem to work and that profitable as well. Obviously I don't see changing them something in a way that will be more complicated and less profitable for them only for the customer comforts sake
