RedChili

While I wouldn't use the same language as the OP ("has lost it"), I would agree that for the routes that I've checked, A3 is charging a much higher amount for C than what would be reasonable.

The fact that they charge this amount doesn't necessarily mean that they have people who buy that ticket. It could also mean that they don't believe there's a sizable market, and they don't care about making any special offers, etc.

For those city pairs that I have tried, C is often 7-8 times more expensive than Y. For that price, a *G basically gets more miles, a free middle seat, slightly better leg room, slightly better food, and first off the plane. I personally don't think that all of that is worth 7-8 times the cost of Y.

East_and_West

Personally I benefit from Aegean's J fares being so high: I rarely fly paid intra-Europe J, unless of course it's my employer who's paying or it's a feeder for a long-haul flight (in which case the short-haul J segment comes almost for free). Given that, high J prices help maintain some upgrade availability open that allows me to use my vouchers

Strictly product-wise, I would agree with OP that A3's J class is overpriced compared to the competition. I find A3's soft product great (a couple of years ago I would say excellent), and their hard product just ok and a bit dated. Although this is again personal, I cannot see how this could be priced twice as much as TK's J (which also offer a very good soft, and a much better hard product) or triple as much as LH's J (which is somewhat inferior, but still pretty decent -- provided that their catering staff are not on strike).

What OP seems to disregard though is that pricing decisions are not based solely on quality considerations ("a better product should be more expensive, and proportionally so") but also on the forces of the market and the strategy of each airline. A3 for example prefer to run full flights, even if this means selling more Y rather than J seats, and offering discounted prices in promotion campaigns. Which makes sense, exactly because their comparative advantage is their Y product rather than their J product. Not many airlines in Europe offer a free meal and (two services of) alcohol to their Y pax... Keep also in mind that short-haul flights are the only main source of revenue for A3.

LH's focus is different, since their intra-European flights are at least as much (if not more) a channel to keep feeding their long-haul birds as they are a source of revenue per se. TK is also different from both A3 and LH since they need keep their prices at reasonable level in order to fill their J cabin with paying pax. This is the price they have to pay for offering proper J seating; otherwise they would have to op-up pax at an even higher rate than they currently do. They are also taking advantage of their access to Asian airports that would be much harder to reach from Europe otherwise. None of the above applies to A3.

In just a few words, different airlines follow different strategies, face very different cost structures, different demand pools, and have different objectives. So a higher price is not always a signal of a higher quality product.

OP, if you like flying J intra-Europe try using A3's upgrade tool. Although my experience is limited, bids a bit higher than the minimum have a very high chance of being accepted.

East_and_West

+1001

Xandrios

And it also depends on the routes. For example, AMS-ATH has A3 and KL service. Here A3 is by far the cheapest in business. Even if not discounted.

Dover2Golf

WRT pricing, airlines advertise fares, you either want to pay them or you don't. There's no point in whinging about them.

LHR-ATH, BA is usually cheaper than A3 but I prefer to fly A3 and so I don't mind paying extra. LHR-TXL BA is usually more expensive than Eurowings but I don't like Eurowings so I pay a bit more to fly BA. In neither case will posting a rant make anything any different and it might even raise my blood pressure. I have a preference based on experience on almost every route I travel and book that without going through a ritual of comparing fares.

irishguy28

Have I got this right?

A cabin/experience that you prefer is available on your frequent route and on an airline you prefer for only half the price. And that causes you to come here to complain?

I really wish these were the kind of problems I had to deal with

lhrpete

I have less than no intention of trawling back through your posts but there is a constant theme which you repeat here which is that A3 is far too expensive for you and you book elsewhere as a consequence.

As others have said, if A3 are filling their seats then their fares are not uncompetitive and the truth is they are just more than you are willing to pay. I don't agree with you and am quite happy to pay what A3 ask to avoid an airline like Austrian which I do regard as the pits of *A.

Glad to have facilitated another rant though. You clearly need to do this periodically and we all understand.

giorginho

Seriously now? You want to take it there and still have me take you seriously? Coincidentally I just flew exactly that, LH C in a A321 (which is probably the "best" Aegean also has to offer) from their hub at Frankfurt to London Heathrow (which should also probably be one of their most busy routes) exactly 3 weeks ago. If I were to carefully examine your sentence I would start with "normally": Which, as the the word implies, is not always the case and this is in fact correct, since Aegean also flies the A321 to Heathrow and from what I've seen (never taken that flight) the C cabin on that route is also quite large. What I am used to when it comes to an Aegean C cabin are 2 or 3 rows of seats. To compare the products further, I need to stress the fact that while both hard products come with a free middle seat, the innermost armrests on Aegean's Airbus A320/321 (can't remember the A319, but I see no reason why it would be any different) get moved towards the inside of the middle seat, giving each of the 2 actually used seats an extra 4-5cm width. If you think this isn't much, I was extremely surprised and disappointed that LH didn't have that (after all it was exactly the same aircraft type!), since I actually don't enjoy having my arms go straight "down" my sides (for obvious reasons) and even those extra 4cm do make a difference in comfort which is at least worth mentioning. Along with the fixed armrests comes the missing "middle-seat-table" on the LH plane, which is used by Aegean for welcome drinks etc. Everything else regarding the hard product is pretty much the same. When it comes to the soft product, I have met so many more Aegean crews that I am not sure I can objectively compare them (though I don't think that you'd ever feel "warmth" from the absolutely professional, but also strictly professional LH crew). A bigger (and fuller) C cabin on LH also doesn't leave much time for any special attention, at least on 2h-flights. However I can definitely compare the food offered (not much else is offered that interests me anyway, I don't drink wine just for the sake of drinking wine on an plane and neither of them serve actual champagne -don't mistake some 10-15$ sparkling wine for champagne- on these flights). I do, however, always (when available) drink a cappuccino (or two), which Lufthansa wasn't serving. Here Aegean, even after the "downgrade" that the gastronomics menu introduced, is a clear winner. What was I offered on the LH flight (9:30am dept. - 11:15am arr. -german time- there was some congestion so we might have stayed even longer in the air)? About 10-15 gramms of "muesli" (which I would normally never eat -I know, it's supposed to be good for you, but I just have my own preferences- ), 100ml of sugar-milk and some bread (slice or roll) that I would only eat if I were starving and there was nothing else left for me to eat. There's a picture for you below...
On any similar Aegean flight in C you would always have the option for a warm meal (even the not-so-impressive-but-still-better-than-LH's my 2nd pic shows from a 2h15min flight). Not that this is worth the difference in price we are discussing, but that's not the point right now.
Even on a 1h15min flight with LOT I enjoyed that little 'breakfast snack' very much (plus I did -just like on Aegean's flight- eat that -unhealthy- bread :P -- pic #3).So it is actually the LH group that "lost it", or simply couldn't compete/sell tickets for the same price as Aegean :P. No serious conclusion, but still, to claim that Aegean has lost it because they didn't follow and trash their C prices is extreme. They were probably doing just fine before and still are now. But if you do fly Aegean as much as you lead us to believe you do, then you should know (and I hate to repeat myself) that you will never find (or to put it correctly: you have never in at least the last 7 years seen) such a C fare on Aegean for that price tag! Aegean will never sell C tickets for less than the price they sell a bunch of economy class tickets! Why is this so difficult to fathom? If LH's super-large regional C cabin can't be filled, then prices will drop, because flying a plane with 1/3rd of its capacity empty is extremely bad for business. Aegean's 2 rows are still valuable, but at the end of the day, they don't live off of those tickets. But again, it's not my position to explain a company's pricing policy, you can criticise it as much as you want, but if they don't want to change it or if it simply doesn't matter to them, there's just no point (and, again, I am absolutely confident that they won't change it. Simply because if they do, they will be shooting themselves in the leg, since their frequent flyers will notice and "expect" other routes to get cheap C fares, so C sales will take a serious hit).
Well then..... just .... and fly whatever the heck you want! Free market! You are free to choose! "Make Aegean hurt and bleed by flying a competitor in C" Show them!!
Wow, what a beautiful ethics lesson! Show off my super cool hard-to-obtain-card and make the 'poor' airline that practically gives their (equally valuable) cards away pay for everything... :shock: I seriously couldn't care less how much Aegean pays for whatever you're milking them for, but you'd better not be looking for sympathy with this attitude (your own actions speak volumes about how you treat people/partners etc. and I am pretty sure you were just "milking" Aegean even before they gave you "reasons" to rant about their C fares from Cyprus)...
Have you put any thought into why you are ranting here before addressing Aegean with your complaints? You don't mention if you have, so I assume you haven't. Here's another "good" part (it will also spare you some time and effort): If you do contact Aegean with your thoughts, doesn't really matter how you address them (kind of harsh), there's one and only one answer you are going to get: "Thank you for your remarks. We have forwarded them to the appropriate department for evaluation". Do you want to try and guess what will happen after that? :P :P And by the way, do you seriously think that while contacting the airline directly will change nothing, a rant on FT will cause some eyes/heads at Aegean to roll?Did you consider your attitude having anything to do with that? :PIn all seriousness, I am super happy for you! I would have done the same. I just fly Aegean, because it usually suits me best, my alternatives are usually Ryan or Eurowings, sometimes TUI, and needless to say all offer inferior products to Aegean's and for the most part they are even more expensive to fly (maybe someone ought to rant about that, I mean it is pretty much the same -crazy- case of "inferior" product being constantly more expensive), but when it happens, that let's say Eurowings offers a fare that at a given point in time is cheaper (I don't mean 50% cheaper, I mean like 15% cheaper, all factors/costs considered -- on many dates they take off at 4am-6am, which is just horrible since you lose pretty much a full night's sleep!-- ) I do actually fly them, instead of Aegean and guess what: Aegean never wrote me any letters to complain about me flying a different airline :P :P :P

PS1. As @bearchemist pointed out, because LH's hubs are actually.... Europe's hubs (Frankfurt/Munich), a great deal of passengers are long-haul premium-cabin passengers that are "just" connecting... They "must" keep their C cabins large to accommodate these passengers (this is exactly what I flew them for as well 3 weeks ago, I was 'just connecting' and so were most of the other C passengers as well!). You take a long-haul flight to FRA/MUC and connect pretty much anywhere in Europe. Aegean's hubs are in Greece, so if one doesn't have Greece as their origin/destination, there's no connecting to an A3 flight. Hence the smaller cabin (plus you can't really compare wallets between Germans and Greeks).
PS2. DUS-SKG 26 Dec. 2019 Economy class Eurowings 199,99€, booked Aegean for 50€! (and there are dozens of similar examples, but after this post I just don't have the time to go open 10 threads to criticise those airlines in the hope that they will improve, could you please do the community a favour and do it for me? )
PS3. Again, the 195 Euro C fare is a fantastic price!
PS4. Geez.... 850k Aegean miles and you won't redeem a fraction of them for a 800€ ticket???!!!!

reklov

And what should those pictures tell? Very much looks like you have ordered special meal Ovo Lacto at Agean by the way.

giorginho

???
I have never ordered any special meal, this was one of two options on the menu, as posted by myself and several other members in the appropriate thread...
Just a comparison between what I was offered in the "aw-so-good LH business class A321" (no choice, extremely small portion, nothing "compatible" with my preferences) as opposed to Aegean or even LOT, which were nothing spectacular, but still... just read what I wrote above, I don't really understand your question (already answered?!).

hugolover

To be honest, all three of those meals look pretty crap especially the hot part of the A3 meal. Nothing particular appetising and looks like A3 Y meal, that part.. You're splitting hairs. The issue is that it's not a fair comparison of what each carrier offers on it's routes. The cold LO meal is a short route only. Many of their routes have hot meals in P and C.

The LH bowl shape is very pretty. I thought LH did a hot meal on FRA/MUC-ATH? They do on LCA, also in Y. So I guess its quite similar. Short feeder get the musli breakfast then a hot meal to LCA. Not so bad. Plus for sure on those flights they offer bread and croissants though its not in your pic.

The bread for both A3 and LO is that industro crap that I would toss in the bin. Probably LH too, but I guess you ate the A3 industro bread.

If you flew all the way is OS Y you'd get better food than any of these offer in their C cabins using the Do&Co pre-order.

DELLAS

That LH one looks like something Id put in the bird feeder at home in the garden

giorginho

Food is almost always very subjective (the same goes for drinks, one could argue that wine A on this flight is better than wine B on that flight, but I won't get into that at all).
I am certainly not the type of passenger that would always consider a hot meal to be better than a cold platter, but I know many FT do (or at least consider the offering of a hot meal to be of a higher class/value product out of principle). Fyi the "omelet" on the left side was very tasty, the soaked bread is not really my thing anyway, but it was edible. The LH flight was, as I wrote, FRA-LHR, my comparison was based on the duration of the flights and pointed out that even LO's cold platter on a 1h15min morning flight was far superior to LH's offering on a prime regional route), I believe going all the way to LCA is a different story (and needs a different comparison).

Yes, LH did have "bakery" products, as I said, I would personally never eat that bread (besides the fact that it looks like my grandma's 91-y-o skin, I also hate its taste and texture) and the "other thing" (that's not a croissant, it's a typical sweet bakery german product) is hands down inedible, I have no idea who and why would enjoy eating that thing (see pic -- it tastes infinitely worse than it looks -- ), which, IF done properly, could actually have the potential to be a very nice addition to the menu (but it's the exact opposite). But as I said, very subjective, I'd still choose the "industro crap" over the LH crap.
The "omelet" part of the Aegean's menu was actually very nice and tasty, the soaked bread is not my thing anyway, but it was edible (at least it wasn't oily, just a bit moist). I've had and seen better on Aegean, but even this was something, compared to LH's near-nothing!

PS. @DELLAS LOL, yeah, bird or probably bunny food, idk :P

hugolover

Is that a wholemeal roll on LH and processed white on A3? I personally find the LH bread items look better than A3 ones.

As I already said, its splitting hairs. None of those pics compel me to consider the food is worth the upsell from business and definitely one of the worst A3 meals I've seen. I read here that their breakfast is often panned as poor.

If you are very into food onboard I suggest you fly OS and pre-order the Do&Co meals. They're far more appetising than anything served by A3 in any pic I've ever seen posted here, nor LH nor LO in SH P/C. They will even load them on KRK-VIE which is only 45 mins in the air.

giorginho

You just pretty much repeated yourself and I will do the same if I reply. Specific things were mentioned to which I (already) answered, no point going on with this. The original topic wasn't even about "upselling" or even business privileges in general. There is a separate thread on in-flight-food, which is there to judge food. I mainly fly whoever is cheaper all things considered (again, repeating myself) and this (the value of the various soft products) is also highly subjective.