Originally Posted by
BostonPlanesAndTrains
You are approaching this from a different perspective, which is fine, but let me be clear: The LATAM + New Deliveries will be in 40J, at least 60% of the fleet. We do not know if the first batch of DL native 359s will be refitted, but there has also been talk of that (especially with the upcoming D1 Suites refresh). This is about right-sizing the 359 and giving a performance punch on the longer routes. The 359s will no longer be the high-capacity trunk route fleet. This will be shifted to the A35K as they come online. You are ignoring that DL has a MUCH larger Premium Economy cabin on some of these compared to UA. Using the 77W as a comparison 60J and 24 in PP. DL A350 has 32 in J and 48 in PE, totaling 80 premium cabin seats on the aircraft, four less than the 77W despite having 50 fewer seats, and six more than the 772. The A339/764/76W all come within 6-12 seats of their UA counterparts.
I don't think it was ever said that the sole reason that UA has more J seats than DL is 100% due to the density of the layouts, but there is a significant difference. Expanding the J cabin any more than 40 seats on the A359 is not reasonable as it will eat into the space needed for other cabins. Expect the A35K to come with 44-52 J seats and a sizeable PS cabin, which would (again) be comparable to UA when looking at total premium cabin capacity.
As of the latest reporting and comments in this thread that I have seen, DL has not confirmed how many A350s will be 40J, only that the ex-LATAM A350s and enough new A350s to fly the South African routes. Should all the additional new A350s be 40J and / or some of the current DL-native A350s be converted to 40J, that's a different story, but until that is announced, that's just speculation. "Niche subfleet" might just be semantics / differences in how we're using the term, but even at 50%+ of the type being configured in 40J, I would still consider that a subfleet if the total number of planes is relatively limited. QF has 24 A350s on order, 12 in Sunrise configuration and 12 potentially not in Sunrise configuration. Even if the second batch of 12 are all in non-Sunrise configurations, the Sunrise A350s at 50% of the fleet and 12 planes total, I think most people would consider that a "niche subfleet." UA has 24 high-J 767-300s and 13 or 14 regular 767-300s (different sources have different numbers), which would be 63%+, and I think most people would also consider that a "niche subfleet" (I certainly do).
On DL's much larger PE cabins, yes I am ignoring that because it's a completely different cabin. J and PE are both "premium" cabins (and even Y+, as well as F), but I don't think it makes sense to group them (except for DL's financial statement reporting), as J and PE are significantly different products at significantly different price points targeting different customers. Many corporate travel policies allow PE but not J and PE is also intended to appeal to leisure travelers with more propensity to spend that want something better than Y or Y+ but still don't want or can't afford J. Having significantly fewer J and significantly more PE seats is a notable difference between DL's A350 and UA's 777-300ER configurations and I wouldn't be looking at it only at the level of 84 vs 80 "premium" seats.
I didn't see Mountain Explorer give any other reason for the difference in UA vs DL's J seat counts other than density, and density was repeated as the reason for the difference in seat count. The density difference (and also plane size difference) was adjusted for in my above comment, and it's clear from that math that even accounting for the seat square footage difference and the plane size difference, UA flies more J seats. Why is putting in more than 40 not reasonable? D1 is a Thompson VantageXL, QF has a 42J Thompson VantageXL cabin on the smaller 787-9. There's no hard limit on the percentage of square footage that has to be dedicated to any cabin, plenty of other airlines have chosen more J-heavy configs (all the way down to 0 Y) and even the fact that DL is going to have 2 A350 sub-fleets with differing amounts of seats in each cabin would demonstrate that airlines are free to allocate as much real estate to each cabin as they see fit. What it comes down to how many of each cabin each airline thinks they can sell for high enough fares on the routes that they fly. Maybe a 40J+ A350-900 is "not reasonable" for DL given the routes they fly and the mix of traffic on those routes that DL attracts, their revenue maximization strategy (as RaflW below covers), a potential though dubious revenue premium from having more square footage per J seat, etc., which is what I think previous questions were trying to delve into before the conversation got sidetracked into whether it was purely or even primarily square footage differences in the J seats that DL vs UA have chosen, but there's no hard and fast rule that a 40J+ Thompson VantageXL J cabin on an A350-900 is not feasible.
Originally Posted by
RaflW
Two of my last three UA transoceanic flights, I've bought up to J from PE at check in for far less than the pre-travel fare difference. UA finds that an acceptable way to make marginal revenue.
Delta has IMO tended to do less of that, though buy ups do get offered at times/some routes.
IOW the two airlines have different revenue maximization models, and lay out their aircraft to try to match their revenue & margin targets.
That makes sense as a contributing factor and I think part of what people (including me) were curious to better understand. Out of curiosity, which routes were those? I am guessing some routes that just barely made the cut for a bigger plane (too much J demand to fill say a 787-8 or regular 767-300, not quite enough J demand to fill a 787-10 or 767-400ER) would have fairly consistent availability for buy-ups (and saver awards). I tend to see far more buy-up / saver award availability on lower demand routes (i.e., EWR-BRU has been much easier for me vs EWR-CDG despite EWR-CDG being flown by a larger plane with more J seats)