When searching for flights to various intra-EU destinations I noticed that KLM only offers "Business Flex" fares (at 500 - 750 euros one way!), while Air France quite often also has the "Business Standard" fares which are at a very reasonable 230 - 270 euros one way. I played a bit for fun and checked various destinations and KLM return business class fares are almost always in the 800 - 1100 euros range, which seems like they really don't care and don't want people to book those fares.

I was wondering what is the commercial reasoning for that, as AF from the same group has affordable/decent business class prices for a better product (at least from a catering point of view and considering KLM's recent serious downgrades of business class food intra-Europe)? And the competition on the same routes from the LH group for example is very often in the 350 - 450 euros return business class, coming in almost always as the cheapest option to fly business. I checked if it's a OTP issue for who knows what commercial reasons, but it's the same from many other airports, and on the direct flights it's usually even worse and more expensive compared to connecting flights.

Even more, at OLCI upgrades are in the 40 - 140 euros range depending on the flight duration, so it's quite curious why would they discourage people from booking directly in C.

Any ideas why their pricing strategy is so inflexible? Just trying to understand what and if there is a marketing approach behind this that I'm not seeing.