Originally Posted by
LegalTender
Big bragging rights for sure but maybe not the best timing. They're working on image and limiting fallout. Revenue from seat selection is worth the collateral contempt. Every co-heart is committing to a 2.0 "experience" prolonging the maverick reputation. And some RR offset that works.
The IT boiler room is where they need to pull a rabbit out of the hat. They have enough trouble right sizing markets with capacity/flights per day/seats per day.
It should not be very hard to price the "business class" experience at more than 1.5 times the price of a regular ticket to compensate for the loss of revenue from the empty middle seat. The big advantage of the European model is that you do not have to commit to any particular number of seats in "business class." You can sell them in increments of four, depending upon the demand on that particular route. I've been on European flights operated in thin markets where only the first row was designated as business (i.e. four seats). And then, on a recent flight from CDG to LHR, more than half of the A320 was "business."
Again, this should not be very hard to implement at all, particularly since you can maintain flexibility in how many "business class" seats you sell.