stimpy

As someone who has flown a lot of MH PE over the last year (mostly CDG-VIE) I'm certainly not happy about this news. I wonder will the mileage earned still be the same if we are paying the Eco Flex fare?

The VIE run was almost always full in PE so from a business standpoint I am surprised they would get rid of it. Maybe some routes weren't doing as well, but why not just concentrate it to the routes where it makes money?

brunos

Basically the difference between MH PE and Eco Flex will be that the meal/service will now be common to Y rather than to C.
You have seen the numerous threads where LH J pax were complaining about the disappointing C service on European flights. As a large percentage of J pax are transfer pax, the poor C meal/service can induce potential big losses for AF. Upgrading the MH C product is also consistent with the upgrade in the LH J product. Let's assume that AF spends 20EUR more per MH C meal, they would have to spend it too on all PE pax and raise ticket prices accordingly.

Stimpy will now have to choose between a MH C ticket with middle seat empty and a decent meal, or Eco Flex with (possibly) similar perks as PE but the Y food/drink. And maybe better prices in Eco Flex.

stimpy

I've never understood the concept behind dumbing down the cost of the meal. They are already super low cost to AF, while a MH PE ticket can cost about €500 per leg. Yes, if the airline squeezes an extra €5 out of the cost of the meal, that adds up to a large number over many thousands of flights. But then they could lose a whole lot more to people who switch from paying for PE on MH flights to buying the lowest cost ticket.

orbitmic

Not a chance. As our friend JOUY31 has pointed out many times, the key way AF differences premium economy from economy is through flexibility. People who buy it will want to keep that flexibility - one way or another. Virtually none of the airlines that AF competes with offer a PE style meal experience on flexible economy tickets. AF will thus not be at a competitive disadvantage by saying that economy is just that and that if people want a business class meal, they will have to pay for a business class ticket. In my view, the logic would be that they move the BA way whereby they get rid of A/S/W buckets in short/medium haul and go back to the system of up to a couple of years ago where fully flex is Y and connections to long haul A/S/W automatically book into Y (or possibly even lower for A).

JOUY31

I am afraid I would agree with stimpy that the risk is high. The move sends a simple message:

as a nearly full-fare Economy paying passenger, we (AF) were giving you the business class experience, except for the free middle seat, and it was compatible with your corporate travel rules, with a little bit of tweaking and negotiation on your part; from now on, we will be downgrading you to the economy class experience and giving you the perks that you already probably enjoy as a SkyTeam Elite + passenger.

Unless the fare structure is adapted along the lines of what orbitmic recommends, this will severely impact loyalty of a very specific target group: those that were more or less willing and capable of paying more than EUR 400/500 for a one-way intra-European segment in W, but not the 800/1,000 EUR required in C, based on a combination of flexibility and comfort.

As underlined by stimpy, once you have lost the incentive to buy AF medium-haul Premium Economy as a corporate traveller, there is no reason why you should not go for the lowest price available; and once that customer segment is no longer consistently loyal, it's gone or will be in a few months.

I would definitely agree with orbitmic if the fare structure he recommends is chosen. I am not sure that an increase in the level of service will not translate into a increase in price, though.

Still, the move will benefit AF if it leads to an increase in the profits from passengers connecting between long-haul and medium-haul in business class, passengers who will be again willing to fly AF based on the new seat in long-haul business class, an increase that depends among other things on the fact that these passengers are not using the cheapest fare buckets, and if this increase offsets the (probable) decline in the profits from medium-haul Premium Economy tickets.

orbitmic

I'm wondering if we are speaking of different things. I read stimpy's comment as suggesting that the people buying AF A/S/W would end up buying AF's cheapest Y fare available, and I still can't see it: AF's cheapest fares would be, as we know, completely non-changeable. Surely, in the view of people who bought European fully flex PE, flexibility would be a significantly higher reason compared to the improved food and drink (otherwise, presumably they would have already bought competitors' C which was often cheaper). Even AF's medium fares would be restricted (many are changeable but only up to several days before the flight and/or for a fee, and of course the buckets availability would be very limited on fares like N, E, Q, etc).

So do you mean perhaps that they would now have an incentive to buy AF's cheapest flexible fares in which case, indeed, I would agree but the differential will then be much less important (e.g. buy Y instead of S, etc).

In any case, again, I do hope that AF will start having more appealing discounted C fares and suspect that they will. They know very well that the trend is not towards more expensive short/medium haul tickets and they will, I guess, need to take that into account in their pricing strategy especially if they want people to buy up.

JOUY31

I mean that they would buy the cheapest available fares from any (decent) carrier.

orbitmic

Ah, I would agree with that, although again this is not how I read stimpy's comment above. That said, I'll admit that it sort of beats me why people won't have done that (buy from other carriers if getting better value for money) before. With FB, FFP-related loyalty ceased to be a factor long ago, and in my view, on many European destinations, competitors' C will have been cheaper than AF's PE. For instance, the sort of price and quality you can get on TK to IST or A3 to ATH or IB to MAD or TP to LIS all in C would have made AF PE irrelevant a very long time ago.

stimpy

Using my CDG-VIE example, I can buy from either AF or OS. Or I could buy from LH much cheaper with a connection at FRA or MUC, or LX via ZRH. But I'll discount the transfer options and focus on non-stop flights. So today I would normally choose AF because I would get both a meal, and lots of miles in my FB account. I have an MP account that I would use with OS which would not earn any extra miles no matter how much I spend on my eco ticket, as OS does not have a PE offering.

So without the incentive of a meal and lots of bonus miles, I would simply choose the cheapest ticket along with the best time whether that is AF or OS. Assuming I'm not chasing status on one or the other airline.

And do not discount the fact that many people whom, as JOUY31 says are willing and capable of spending on PE, do so mainly for the meal and bonus miles and not strictly for the flexibility.

bennos

What is the special expensive fare bucket and how does it differ from TATL/TPAC W/S/A? For the poster I was replying to and myself, PE is sold as an additional segment on a TATL (or TPAC) itinerary. If I found myself in longhaul Y on such an itinerary when ticketed in W, I would definitely be filing a claim, albeit without expecting much out of it.

As a TATL PE customer, lack of medium haul W shifts the equation a bit for me by removing a (minor) competitive advantage. BA and soon LH start to look a bit better (or less worse). (Too bad VS doesn't have a meaningful intra-Europe network.)

JOUY31

As mentioned in the thread I quoted, I would personally choose AF W over A3 C from Paris to Athens. And corporate travel rules usually make C, regardless of the price, impossible to use, while W, an Economy fare, is usually acceptable.

brunos

To your first point:
Although there is a single appelation PE for LH and MH flights, they are different concepts. On LH PE is a separate class and treated as such In particular the seat is different from Y seat. On MH flights there are two only two classes, business and economy. In MH PE you get a Y seat, 3x3, but additional perks like sitting behind C and having an enhanced meal .
Hence, the situation in LH and MH is different.

To your second point:
I fully agree. But the current C meal service is really mediocre, especially on short flights. Indeed, current Y service is even worse.

brunos

I agree with you that buying AF PE makes little sense on most routes if you pay for it personally. And it often is just a tiny bit cheaper than AF C. I was looking at return flight to Vienna in December. A segment is 376 in PE and 420 n C, not much difference for an empty seat next to you (and possibly the first row) and lounge perks (I am not elite+ anymore). Both fares bring full flexibility. But I would buy either a cheap discount ticket (or Easyjet if it flies the route conveniently) or C.

But I agree with Jouy31 that the usual travelers willing to fork some 800 for such a return ticket are employees whose ticket is paid by the company and the travel policy very rarely allows travel in C for MH. Even if the price of Eco Flex drops a bit compared to PE, that is a benefit to the company and those pax are the losers.

orbitmic

I actually am not sure how "usual" that is. I do realise that this is the rule where you work but I actually think most companies now treat premium economy as an entirely different travel class with its own rules. It is certainly not the case where I work, where there are effectively two classes of travel which are "economy" (certainly not including PE) and "classes of travel higher than economy". In effect, for us, where C is not allowed (most of the time) PE is not either, although we could buy up to either if we pay for it ourselves. I know many other companies with similar policies.

On AF W > A3 C, I do indeed remember that you said that now, but I will admit that it still beats me why, especially having recently flow A3 C again, which was excellent and I would argue much nicer and better than AF C in my last experience (proper choice of food and higher quality even though meals on those types of flights are effectively the ones AF does best within its own range, entertainment, more comfortable seats, etc.).

orbitmic

Not the best example as AF and OS have a codeshare agreement on that route!

As for people who choose PE over Y just for food and bonus miles, I personally cannot imagine that they are many. Again, to take your example above, you can get promotional C fare (only available on the OS operated flights) on OS for far cheaper than AF PE. The food is a whole league above AF on the route, the wines are better (sparkling excepted), and while the miles are poor as you would book in P, elite bonus miles count towards requalification.

I do take JOUY31's point that some corporate policies like his may allow PE at any cost and disallow C at any cost, but in that case, if it leads AF to benefit from companies which end up paying significantly higher fares than C for a sometimes significantly lower service just because it can fit in the box, then I think that it is a system that defies common sense to such a point that I would rather have companies fix its bureaucratic lack of logic than encourage the system to perpetuate. For example, it is unfortunately not the case in my place of work, but I know of other companies where eligibility of premium classes is expressed as a % of tolerable higher cost at similar ticket conditions for each travel time band. This, to me, would be far more logical (e.g. so a flight under two hours, you could only buy a higher travel class if the ticket with similar conditions is no more than 10% higher. However, on a flight up to 4 hours it may be up to 30% higher, and on a flight of 6-8 hours it might be 50%, etc.)