Originally Posted by
jordyn
That's IrrOps (and a 7.3% IrrOps rate is nothing to be proud of). If you pay for one of these flights more than a few months out, there's nothing to stop AA from permanently changing the route to a different type of aircraft and then telling you to pound sand when you tell them you're not getting the product you paid for. When you pay for Mint, on the other hand, you know you're getting a flat bed.
Exactly my point-- I would NOT pay a premium with a > 7% chance of a swap.
I remember when the JFK-LAX was operated by the 762s that were swapped to non-premium 752s so frequently that there was a dedicated thread on the forum that was always on the front page. People were very upset. The point is that you can't get a price premium without being able to guarantee a premium product. And absent the price premium it is not worth it to put lie-flats on more routes. They are putting the 332 on those routes for the extra Y capacity versus the 321, not because of lie-flats.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem. JetBlue has solved that problem by producing a proverbial chicken. So has Delta where D1 is sold as a different class from F. As a result there are a lot of people who would book Mint but would not book a random AA lie-flat (unless it were priced like a standard domestic F upgrade).