trustno1

I see that the Aer Space catering thread has morphed into a pricing discussion but instead of hijacking that thread I thought I would start a dedicated thread re pricing as we would have all seen price increases from Oct on.

Like a lot of people on this forum, I booked a shed load of Aer Space fares which will see me retaining Concierge after 6.5 months after my anniversary date. In most cases the difference between the Saver Fare and Aer Space was €40 in total. You probably have all seen lately the cost of changing flights in some instances has been astronomical.

So getting to my point.

I travel to FRA every other week, usually on the Sun afternoon and return Friday evening. I book ahead to avail of the best fares and this is what I have noticed. Using 7th and 12th of July as an example, I can book a Lufthansa Business Saver fare for €272 or their Econ Light fare for €129 which is similar to the EI Saver Fare.

For the same dates, Aer Lingus is charging the following:

Saver: €206
Plus: €321
Advantage: €351
Aer Space:€397

I’ve had a few false dawns thinking I would move from EI, but at the prices above, I think it could now be a no-brainer. It’s a pity Ryanair stopped flying into FRA but Lufty seems the much better value for money option for my trips.

Pete_23567

No doubt LH is better given those prices - at least you’ll have a lounge on your way back, 2 or 3 more drinks each way if you wanted them, more leg room, fast track in FRA, and hopefully avoid that disastrous security situation in FRA T2.

Only thing is you’d want to be doing it every second week at least and you might hit SEN in the year which would be decent. Frequent Traveller isn’t really worth much.

alserire

What I don't get is the disparity between Advantage and AerSpace. I knew the "AerSpace cheaper than Saver" wouldn't last forever but they have gone totally the other direction now. If there was a 20 to 30 Euro premium over Advantage I might consider it. But at the moment there's just no way. It'll be interesting to see what they do with these fares, especially on busy routes with potentially sold out planes. Seems ludicrous to leave seats empty.

ferg01

I had to stop booking AerSpace fares when they started showing up as “Business Class” in my work booking system…I’ve also noticed massive hikes to LHR too on these fares. Maybe EI’s TATL passengers transiting DUB are taking them?

Kgmm77

I’m not sure how the economics of keeping a free middle seat work with only a €20-30 uplift. The introductory fares were never going to last. Getting rid of it completely would’ve been more likely in that case.

alserire

You could also argue the economics of an entirely empty front row. Flew to LIN this morning. One seat occupied. So in my last six sectors a grand total of two seats occupied. Out of twelve. Not sure how that makes economic sense either.

DELLAS

Only going to get worse during this Winter and thats why I expect to see more "sales" and adjustments .

ROKNA

The goal of revenue management is two fold

Get as much cash in the door
Fill as many seat as possible

They are flying with empty seats so the system is broken, the solution is probably to slightly complicate this by having two Aer Space fares, one which does not offer a refund and one which does or do some voodoo so AerSpace is Advantage + 20% always

If they want to hold the seats for connections thats fine, but any flight into Dublin arriving after 4pm is not going to connect so the pricing should reflect this, equally when the NEO is used it will always have seats

And ah, why not upgrade status holders into the empty seats....

alserire

The other than I find, in travelling alone and booking exit row seats (aisle), is that more often than not I’ll have a middle seat free. Maybe 70 percent of the time. Four of last six sectors. So that further reduces the appeal of AerSpace. For me anyway.

FlightDetective

Doesn't actually matter, unless every single seat is full from row two on back.

You're only losing out if the entire flight is full and there is no-one in AerSpace, otherwise keeping the middle seat free and charging a premium is actually not hurting anything at all.

AerSpace is not business class. It is another economy fare, just one with more perks than all the others. Aer Lingus are at pains to point out at every turn that it's not business class at all, it is economy class with extras and a seat free. The reason for that is because it would attract higher UK APD if it was business class. Therefore, there is no upgrading to be done, because it is the same class of service as the rest of the plane.

EI should just bite the bullet and introduce business class throughout Europe. It can be zero rows when they sell no seats, one row when they sell 1-4 seats, two rows where they sell more and so on and so forth. BA manage it quite easily, with the number of seats changing depending on the demand on each particular fllight, so I don't see why EI can't do the same.

sven60035

"AerSpace is not business class", tell that to the contract provider in Amsterdam who ever single time makes sure I know I fly business class, from attaching a business class priority sticker to my bag (as if that works), to telling me as Business Class customer I can use fast track and the lounge and sometimes even struggle to check me in because "for business class we need to use a different interface". Or at the gate where they ask "business class" to board first.

And like ferg01 the fare buckets for AerSpace now show up as business class in my companies work booking interface for some reason.

So maybe we get business class on all routes beside the UK soon and the people in Amsterdam are just ahead of the implementation.

Pete_23567

I’ve been given a J boarding card at bag drop in a few airports but computer says no at Fast Track and the stickers on the bag seem to be ignored. Does it work at AMS?

DELLAS

I get that on LHR - DUB the Business Class bag tag means nothing.

sven60035

Bag tag on arrival in Ireland - nope

Fast Track Amsterdam - I remember before I had Privium (which was one of the best purchases I have done in a long time) I was able to use the priority lanes at security, but I think that might have been because of my EI status which officially gives you access to the priority lanes once you hit silver.

Fast Track Ireland - I'm Cork based; we don't have that because even on a bad day security is about 5 minutes. But it should work in Dublin as it's part of the benefits.

FlightDetective

Fast-track security is listed as one of the perks for AerSpace.and AMS is listed as one of the cities with AerSpace, so I assume it works - https://www.aerlingus.com/about-us/a...news/aerspace/

I remember specifically going to a Fast-Track line in an airport where I told the guy I was in "AerSpace class" and he let me use it, but I can't remember if it was AMS. It may well have been, I remember a white entrance. Anyway, with the pricing of AerSpace as it is, I'm hardly going to be using it anytime soon.