It's been two months since I ticketed my flights on AF (new business class concept--never tried it but heard very good things, especially the food and wines--of course!) and about 40 hours to flight time, so I thought I'd do a check.

Here are the J-class availabilities for the SFO flights on 4MAR for BA:
BA 284 J9 C8 D7 I2 (which means there are 9 or more seats available)
BA 286 J9 C6 D6 I6 (which means there are 9 or more seats available)

And for AF:
AF 83 J4 C4 D3 I3 Z0 (it is exactly 4 seats available--no, it's not 4 or more).

So unless something real unusual happens in the next 40 hours (1) BA does fly less than full--to the tune of a minimum of 18 revenue seats, and (2) BA lost at least $5,500 in revenue from us, plus who knows how much for others who, like us, decided to keep the $5,200 additional fare that BA demanded. And AF seems to have allocated the right amount of discount seats on the flight: they're pretty full, but still able to sell seats for last minute business pax.

BA's policy seems like a big loser to me. And if the AF flights are good, AF/SkyTeam will have gained new recurring premium customers.