Originally Posted by
dave_261
This thread has nothing to do with airline profitability or premium economy. This thread is about, and I quote, "is it getting harder to upgrade?"
Within this thread a poster stated "other airlines are adding premium seats. Cheap ... Parker is takin' 'em away." - that is simply to do with premium seats and is , from what I can see an untrue statement
That there are fewer busines class and 1st class seats , indeed that seems quite true , but additional premium seats have been added, regardless of whether they arre the ones that you want. On the plus side, it is now cheaper to get a decent seat than it used to be when there was no premium economy
If people wanting to buy business class seats are able to reasonably do so , but getting one for points/systemwide upgrades is harder, seems that the airline is getting it right and not , as also suggested , "I don't see his model being sustainable."
Finding award/upgrade availability does seem harder on AA , especially confirmed at time of booking. Maybe AA will bring in the ability to actually upgrade to premium economy soon which could be a nice use of points for the fairly short transatlantic trips