Interesting data from LHR-LAX yesterday.

We had bought cheap full J tickets ex-CAI that included this flight and when booking last October EF showed A6 so we grabbed 5 of those for 25k miles each and EF then showed A1 for many months. I set an EF alert and tracked the A and C buckets for kicks. A bucket went to zero and another seat in the F cabin was filled. A month or so later same thing and then F1/A0 until day of departure when the last person got the remaining open seat (by gate upgrade I presume) in row 2. By my count, there was at most one “paying” F passenger and rest of those eight seats were lowly upgraders. It’s slow season in August for premium travel, but still, this is supposed to be the route that makes AA/BA tons of money.

Biz cabin wasnt much better, about a week out it went to C7 and stayed that way until departure and when I asked the purser onboard she said they had a number of empty seats in biz.

While I know AA is pulling in big bucks most of the time on this route, it certainly wasnt the case on the flight yesterday. Worth considering this route for next August if you are looking to use miles or SWUs.