Reduced C capacity?
 

Does anyone know if there's been a general reduction in the number of C class seats available on most AC flights?

I just tried to upgrade 8 segments and only one was successful, on all the rest I've been waitlisted. When I check the segments on ITN they show plenty of room in J but C is 0 for all.

I had no problem with the YYZ-YEG segments which were upgraded to C at time of booking my flighs in paid V. Not sure on how much of the fleet has the front cabin been "shrunk". My flights were both on A320s, but were for a midday Thursday, generally a light travel period, and on early evening Monday, again not a heavy tavel period.

Perhaps if you can be more specific about the time of day you are travelling, when [holiday weekend, peak time: Sunday afternoon or Monday morning] or how far out from today you have booked, and the routes, we can offer some informed rationals for your flights being C'd out. I suspect AC may be allocating less inventory to upgrades on their scaled back schedules, particularly on key routes like YYZ-YVR, YYZ-YYC and even YYZ-YHZ, as they appear to have done on most flights to LHR.

As long as J is wide open, and you are being waitlisted, the likelihood of the upgrades clearing prior to either the 72-hour Elite or 24-hour Prestige timelines is good. For a while, as an Elite through much of the year, I found domestic upgrading to be impossible at the 72-hour point, but calling b ack just before the 24-hour point often got me the upgrade seat. In all cases, the upgrade did clear at the airport.

YYZ-YHZ on Friday afternoons and YHZ-YYZ on Sunday afternoons over the next few weeks seem to be a particular problem, but I've also had an issue on some MCO-YHZ segments.

Actually it's been really difficult just getting a flight out of MCO and then a connection to YHZ on Fridays since they cancelled the 8am MCO-YYZ segment.

A lot of flights seem to be filling up more than usual on Fridays and Sunday evenings/Monday mornings. My guess is that the number of people travelling on those days isn't much less than it used to be, but there are significantly fewer flights available for them due to the schedule cuts. Mid-week flights are still quite empty, though.



[This message has been edited by StuMcIlwain (edited 10-03-2001).]

Exactly as I thought. Sunday evenings/Monday mornings, and Friday afternoons are the peak business travel periods of the week: heading out for a week on the road, and heading home at the end of that week.

I suspect this is a combination of two things: heavy advance bookings for those very reasons, and an anticipation by AC that there will also be a lot of last minute bookings or flight changes to be accommodated from full fare flyers. Thus they are keeping more inventory in J open to accommodate such changes, and allocating less C on each flight. This for sure means at the airport upgrading, and being SE you will have first crack at any front cabin seats. However, you might just want to try back a day before the 72-hour Elite window, and again at the 24-hour Prestige window, just incase you've cleared the list. Or at least AC can tell you what the loads are like closer to flight time.

I too have noticed the pattern of reduced C capacity. I've been monitoring the YVR-HKG flight over the last week or so and C class fluctuates from C0 to C6 in some cases during the course of a day. However, in most cases, most flights will show availability in C the day prior to departure. AC's system usually release all J inventory into C class the day prior to departure (i.e J5C5).

Also remember that AC is in the process of reducing capacity by 20% which mean that some flights you see now will be gone in a couple of weeks so they've got to protect some J seats for revenue passengers.

I too have noticed this, and I've been looking at flights today and tomorrow. Unless you opt for the very early or very late flights, there seems to be little or no opportunity to upgrade on YYZ-YVR, even within 24 hours of the flights.

On another note, some flights are packed to the gunnels. After reducing MKE-YYZ from 3/day to 2/day the remaining 2 flights, while still showing some availability on Aow!, show almost all seats assigned. Occurs to me that if you cut 1 of 3 flights you are reducing capacity 33% in the face of expected 20% reduction in demand.

BTW, I used my options strategy to come home a different route, to insure J class.

[This message has been edited by Ken hAAmer (edited 10-03-2001).]

If you want J pay for the ****in seat. You cheapsaktes are lookin for to much.

What is your problem!? We were having a peaceful discussion about C class and I don't think we need these kind of crap in here!

I didn't want to say this but just want to let you know that I have a good feel about who you were before. I believe you were on FT before posting under a different username. (I apologize if I am wrong but I am quite confident about this statement).

Now, us cheapskates got to get back to talking how to use our upgrades.

Too much to drink, I presume. Hopefully he'll be sober by morning.

Probably why he mixed up his usernames in the other thread. It's a pretty serious problem if he is drunk and still managed to wander onto FT. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Maybe that's why AC had NetNanny blocking FlyerTalk in the lounges! (Or why they don't allow liquor in the Ontario lounges' Business Centres). http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

andrew