Originally Posted by
golfingboy
IMHO the 77E is an upgrade for the most part. Now those in J/F will enjoy “F like” hard product, AA elites not booked in J/F probably can select premium economy for free, and the Y product is better.
The only real loss is the F soft product which isn’t really significantly different from J aside from Flagship Dining and a more intimate cabin. With how weak premium and bookings have been I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the flights goes out with around 50-60% of the J seats booked or less.
For premium cabins, guaranteed direct aisle access may be a key feature. American was the only carrier not providing this in the NYC-LAX route alongside Alaska which offers Domestic First service on this route.
I also agree with the MCE part that pax could choose Premium Economy seats for free, although 10 abreast 777 with 30 inch legroom might not sound good as an A321.
For Business Class, it would give AAdvantage users to book Economy and spend their miles or upgrade coupons to upgrade in a season where the premium cabins are not full as the upgrade list would probably not be full and most passengers request would be cleared.
Originally Posted by
cmd320
With that said, I can see how the 772 makes more sense at the moment to JFK. I can't imagine there are a lot of people out there right now purchasing 'Flagship' F fares when you're being sent to a marginal Admirals Club and being offered a domestic F service on board the aircraft. With 10 of those seats on the A321T, that's a lot of the airplane that becomes useless and filled with non-revs, not ideal. With plenty of 777s hanging around, it makes sense to deploy them on this route with a much larger J cabin to be sold. With that said, it does surprise me to see only 2 daily flights. That's definitely extremely low, even for now when DL and B6 are both running 5 daily.
To clarify, currently, Flagship First passengers are getting the Flagship Business soft product which is a high improvement over Domestic First. I guess that Delta is the only one who serves Domestic First soft product on their premium transcontinental routes.
By the way, I was also surprised to see only 2 daily services.
Originally Posted by
only1percent
It's a New York thing more than an AA thing for sure. New York imposes a 14 day quarantine on travelers from 31 states and basically every foreign country of consequence. This has shut down virtually all out-of-town business travel and most tourist travel. Even to the extent not applicable (e.g., California is not on the restricted list), Manhattan remains closed for office-type business for essentially all purposes, and suburban businesses have largely replicated that - all meetings online only.
JFK, LGA and EWR can feel nearly as empty now as they were at the depths of the shutdown in April and early May. It's a shocking contrast to DEN, DFW, MIA, ATL, CLT etc. which at least in their home hub carriers' terminal(s) can feel as busy as ever during their bank times, and in some cases busier given that a lot of restaurants, bars and airport lounges remain closed or limited service creating long lines elsewhere. (Although they quiet down a LOT between banks, which in many cases are reduced by at least half on a daily basis.)
Most passengers on the JFK-LAX route used to be O<-->D pax rather than connecting traffic.
For the reduction of flights, yes, it might be related to the decrease of business travelers, although there are many leisure travelers flying this route as well. AFAIK no LCC operates NYC-LAX at the moment so they have no other choice to make a connection or choose the US3, Alaska or JetBlue.
I have flown LAX-EWR in September with United and I could tell that the flight was fully booked, standby's didn't clear, and there were many leisure travelers including families with children under the age of 10 and many solo passengers under the age of 30 in the Economy cabin. EWR Terminal C was also crowded; although not crowded like CLT which I visited last month as well.