orbitmic

I don't really understand what this (the first part) means. As AF uses flexible cabin limits, you could have a "completely full" PE of 1 row or a "only half full" PE cabin of 20 rows! Can you give us more specific indications as to how large the PE cabin was on your flights?

For what it is worth, I reported multiple times in recent months how empty the PE cabin has been on my CDG-LHR-CDG flights, including at peak business times. In my past 10 or 12 such flights, I think that the largest PE cabin that I have seen has been two rows, and on some, there wasn't a single passenger in PE. So personally, from a business standpoint, based on my contrary anecdotal experience, I certainly aren't surprised that AF think that they needed to change the concept.

stimpy

LHR would be a unique route IMHO as most business people take the Eurostar and for the business people who fly, IMHO most take BA on this route. For the VIE run, it's always 2 rows of PE no matter what (no flexing), and it's always been full in my experience, no matter what time of day (not counting weekends and bank holidays of course) and even if the back of the plane is relatively empty. Ditto for the ARN run. So in my experience, your supposition that not many people buy PE isn't correct. Even if it may be true for CDG-LHR for the above reason.

And every place I've worked doesn't care if it's Y or PE, as long as it's not business class. Of course back in the 90's we all flew business class, but those days are over for MH flights.

Goldorak

I fully agree with you but I can tell you that such a level of stupidity (i.e. choosing a Y fare because of travel policy, even if lower C fares are available (like Z) is very common in companies. Because if you choose the business class fare, then your dossier is flagged and requires additional (more or less extensive) justification for approval and people are pissed of all this bureaucracy and do not want to bother anymore. I have faced this situation myself several times and know many people around me who have been in the same case several times. Travel policies are necessary (and I fully support them) but we have to admit that often they include a lot of unjustified constraints and are very annoying for the frequent travelers.

Goldorak

Unfortunately, with self-booking tools used in many corporations, PE is a distinct class of reservation and so, if the travel policy allows only Y for MH, your dossier is flagged as non-compliant.

brunos

If we are talking about only two rows max of PE, then we are talking very small numbers for AF. Especially since pax are often upgraded to PE when the flight is full or when they have loaded meals that would be useless. A lot of pax have had that opup even when Y was not full (I did).

orbitmic

Actually as brunos points out, to me this is extremely small! 2 rows = 12 pax out of which how many would choose PE specifically for the meal/drink rather than the flexibility? Personally I would think that even 1 is "rounded up" quite significantly, but even thinking 2, frankly that doesn't sound like the numbers that would suggest AF are making the "wrong" decision.

orbitmic

Exactly my experience as well.

stimpy

IME self-booking tools are only in the rather large corporations. I've never seen it in companies that only have a few thousand or less employees. And there are a whole lot more of those than the bigger corporations.

brunos

Why would self-booking tools be only in large corporations? This is a fairly simple generic software where only the parameters are set for each company/employee. If anything, i would think that they are less needed for large corporations with dedicated guys looking after travel.
And even if bookings are made through a dedicated travel agent, as used to be the case, the TA has clear instructions on what is allowed by the corporate policy or not. I think that the time of "vague" travel policies is gone.

I also think that corporate contracts between AF and large corporations have become quite sophisticated (I am not talking here about the State or local government, nor public entities). The sophisticated contract deals with fare (price) and fare conditions, whereby flexibility can be introduced even on low fare buckets which usually do not have such flexibility. But that means that the company policy requires traveling in low fare buckets unless unavailable, then higher fare buckets. But that's getting too technical and off-topic.

stimpy

Because it's not worth the trouble for smaller companies.

Even at places where they offered travel agent services internally, I always have chosen to make my own choices when traveling. The only time that was an issues was when my company was bought out by a huge corporation, which I left out of disgust after a few months.

At companies that have less than a few thousand employees, there's a relatively small number of road warriors and they, IME, are left to their own devices so to speak. As long as they don't turn in a receipt that says business class on it. And even then, I always book business on long haul flights and pre-warn those responsible for expenses about it.

brunos

I do understand that you have an experience that spreads over many years. But things have changed in the recent past and cost controls have spread like a bad virus.

Admittedly France is very slow to adapt to change and to internet tools. Nevertheless, many medium-sized French companies with a corporate contract with AF ask employees to use a self-booking tool if they book AF. Otherwise (other airlines), they have to go through the company's official TA who does the control or report to the company's travel official. You quickly get flagged if you don't adhere to travel policy.

I am also a bit surprised that you seem to imply that it is common practice that the employee pays for a ticket himself and then get reimbursed upon the presentation of air ticket receipts. And your employers must be very lax if you simply have to pre-warn them that you travel LH business. In most companies, either the policy allows you to ravel LH J or not, with exceptions being made on a case by case basis but always having to be pre-authorized.

orbitmic

I can confirm that it is definitely not limited to large companies, and is indeed, no "trouble". In most European countries, there are a few travel agents which concentrate well over 90% of the company travel markets (both small and large) and they have come up with the self booking tools long ago.

Self booking tools are part of what those TAs offer when trying to win contracts with smaller companies even more than with large ones. There is absolutely zero need to adapt the tool to individual companies as the TA simply enters the parameters of each policy for each type of account user, and what you get is a self-booking tool just like Expedia's or Opodo's and when you log on, it lets you book whatever you need/want except that it then signals you (1) if your choice is out of policy, (2) if there were other cheaper alternatives available even if your trip was within policy (with most employers you will then need to select a justification for why you chose that instead, like flight times, number of stop, airline's choice, etc).

I don't like self-booking tools and am glad for you that your company has not chosen to use one, but I can guarantee you that across most of Europe, companies both large and small (I mean, maybe not with 5 employees, but most companies with even 20 or 50 employees!) have made that choice long ago. And indeed, when they have, PE is definitely flagged as outside of policy if the policy says Y.

JOUY31

Actually, almost every corporate policy disallows C at any cost for intra-European medium-haul. It doesn't follow that they allow W at any cost; it also requires some justification, but it is, for me, a tremendously less painful process than a request to travel in C.

Henry III

Forgive a dumb/naïve question here but, as the PE quota on M/H flights is flexible (zero rows upwards), how will it save money to abandon the concept?

If there is no PE passenger on a given flight, then there simply won't be the extra rows between C and the curtain; if there is an integral multiple of 6, then there are 6/p rows of PE; in any other case, some 'lucky' plain Y passenger(s) may get to sit forward of the curtain (FB Elites, possibly ), but there's nothing to dictate that AF must then offer them the 'full' PE service.

Or is it simply a case of 'administrative' costs. Or (more likely), does AF presume that those who have purchased PE fares on L/H trips with M/H connexions won't mind being demoted to simple Y for the onward/feeder flight?

Or (even more likely), have I missed something fundamental here?

-- Henry

orbitmic

It saves money because people wanting to pay full fare economy (medium haul) or long haul PE with European connections will be sat in the Y cabin so offered a cheaper service. In other words, you don't "get rid" of an offer but you associate it explicitly with Y service rather than with C service minus free middle seat.