Originally Posted by
Mr. BoH
I think you are dramatically overestimating the number of people that fly WAS-PHL-EUR. Most would just fly direct out of IAD on United or one of the dozen+ European carriers that serve WAS. I fly PHL-EUR plenty and have never seen a J cabin anywhere close to 1/2 to 1/3 empty.
The seats can fill up with SWU and Mileage+copay if there was a waitlist - plus employee travel.
Unless you track a flight and see the load factor a day or two before - you can't assume that all seats sold.
You can use expert flyer to track load factor way in advance.
On my flight with 7 out of 20 empty J seats - the flight was completely sold out a couple of days before and even the same morning. All emptys were misconnects. And there was no one on the upgrade list. People do connect to PHL, maybe not as many from DCA - but AA club agents said people miss those PHL flights out of DCA all the time - and they are so fustrated - that we will book people on other airlines.