Originally Posted by
EBiafore99
This is a good point. I can't remember where this was said, but for a while, Delta has been "rightsizing" their cabins according to what people will pay rather than providing upgrades to fill almost half the cabin. If you look at United's 773 layout, it appears that just about 1/2 of the aircraft is for the 60 Polaris seats and the remaining 250 - 300 passengers are squeezed into the remaining portion of the aircraft. This is the question you have to ask yourself - while I may have a better upgrade chance on UA, what price do I pay if I get forced into a 3x4x3 seat in economy OR, I may have less of a chance getting an upgrade on Delta, but at least the economy seat is more livable at 3x3x3.
Delta has also decided to 'go big' on the P.E. cabin seat count (though not seat width on the A350 alas). Six rows of P.E. is double what AA has on their 772. The decision to 'right-size' J and provide a fairly large P.E. cabin suggests to me that Delta wants to protect per-seat revenue in J, and recognizes that they probably saw good early returns on the PE yield on the A350. I wonder in the next recession if DL will eek out better numbers than UA which may regret such big J cabins?