Originally Posted by NYLON Boy
please!!!! this message board is like chinese whispers. so some informed corrections from my partner who was AT the presentation, not on third hand hearsay:
1. First will NOT be ditched - it is to be replaced with a much upgraded F product to maintain the differential between F & J. BA acknowledges the current product is life-expired and there is insufficient product differentiation between J and F.
2. Club - new generation product will be flat, still 8 across on 744/772. However, by careful redesign and thinning of partitions the seats can be made wider. As with the old J seat, premium capacity growth will be due to mix - the curtain will move further back - so less Y seats basically.
3. W - when sold, is per Sq m, the most profitable part of the plane, but it 's still a niche product.
So please, this is nt airliners.net, the message is that BA is still a 4 class long haul airline. What you may see is F taken off routes where it is more marginal. What that means is less upgrades on the lower yield routes.
Being fair to the other posters here, the speculation above was based on listening to what purports to be an audio recording of the entire one hour presentation, including Q&A. That's a long way from Chinese Whispers!
I'm assuming the presentation you're referring to was something different (an Investor Day, for example)?
I would also be extremely surprised if the proportion of Y seats was to decline further. There comes a point where, as others have said, you just end up giving your C seats away to upgraders.
Finally, speculation (of the informed variety) is all that anyone outside BA and the contractors involved can really resort to at this stage. BA are a listed company and won't be letting any commercially significant details slip without making the information fully publicly available.