Originally Posted by
SEA-Flyer
Bummer. Would have been nice if they were the NEV3 ones. While the A380 is too big of an aircraft which makes it difficult to sell tickets for all the seats, I think AF's problem is made worse by the crappy business class seats that they never did anything about. Nobody who knows better would ever book a business class ticket on the A380 when there is an alternative available. NEV4 is a noncompetitive product. NEV3 is much worse. I've often noticed a price difference on routes that have both the A380 and the 777, that the A380 is substantially cheaper in business class.
They do not really have problems to sell the seats. Everytime I take those, they are super full. But their config is too premium-heavy to have the flexibility to put them on different routes depending on the season. And now, as you rightly said, many well-informed business travelers are avoiding it when they can because of the seat. I am one of those. I truly like the plane but, if I can, I avoid it for several years now, because I don’t want to play the Russian roulette between NEV3/NEV4 seats. I can bear the NEV4, but not the NEV3 seat. To/from IAD for instance, if my schedule permits it, I take the B77W with the BEST seats rather than the A380.
So the yields are somewhat lower with the A380 because of that and also because there are more seats to sell in the cheaper fares.