Originally Posted by
hhdl
This was announced last year (jointly by AFKL/DL/VS): though DL was a few months slower than the others to implement, they had agreed with the other JV partners to start charging the change fee.
I would expect that ex-North America will continue to allow free changes (though with somewhat higher fares). The next big change is likely to be some form of Basic Delta One: AFKL in particular would like to introduce that (at this point, the only reason they haven't introduced it for flights to/from US/Canada is the Delta JV)... $500 to a $1000 extra for changeability, lounge access (unless Elite+), checked baggage (unless Elite+), and seat selection (unless Elite+) is probably the right ballpark for that.
AFKL has been back in the change fee game for almost a year now - a few months slower is an understatement. Though I suppose that we (I) benefitted more then. The fares ex-US are higher anyway already: fwiw, I could usually fit up to two roundtrips ex-EU into one ex-US price-wise, but that remains true on AA/BA and will likely remain that way.
Will be interesting to see how far they take the spiritification of the premium cabins. Some aspects are fine (like seat selection, with some caveats, similar to BA), but completely gutting the product and benefits will probably not bring a lot of customers. Not that fares would actually be lower if you booked a business lite fare.