Sybela

It seems from tomorrow Air France/KLM gonna add a new business class fare, a light fare with less luggage, no lounge access.
Sounds good I think, the biggest lost to me is the lounge access but most of J customers get it from status.

maalloc

What's your source?

It would indeed be a very nice way to add implicit value to status

Sybela

I had to call Air France few hours ago cause of booking issues, the hotline told me this, it’s not official source I agree

SkyteamEP

That would be a welcomed changes given that fares are through the roof at the moment.

Goldorak

I strongly disagree. This is not a welcome change. You all know what's going to happen (remember when they did the light fares for Y ?) : the current (high) fares will become the light fare and you will need to add all the options. And will they add light to all sub-fares (J, C, D, I, Z, O), as they did for Economy ?

J-class should come with perks (priority services, higher bags allowance, lounge, etc) and you pay for this. Since one month, you have to pay for your seat, and now for lounge access and for bags ?? Come on !
Think about :
- your travel companions without status, for which you will have to pay for lounge access
- the company bookings using SBT where it's always systematically the lowest fare that pops up and travelers will have to justify why they want a highest fare, etc etc.
THIS HAS TO STOP !

maalloc

I see your point, and that's certainly bad news for status-less pax.
My optimistic take on this is that price pressure would at some point force AF to price this "light J" at a more affordable rate, be it just to pop up at the top of the cheap flights list.

We do have some very acceptable domestic Y rates these days despite the crazy 2023 price grid. Pretty sure unbundling helps a lot for this. I'd take 30% lower J tickets on long haul if status perks fill the gap.

BubbaX

Well, I guess we'll find out pretty soon. Unbundled business class, where the passenger only gets one bag and no lounge access? What's the cost savings? Presumably, the people who take this won't be checking a second bag anyway, and lounge is around 20 Euro/leg. And the extra charge for both would be and 100 Euro, tops. So, they can't make the unbundled ticket much cheaper than the bundled ticket currently is. And they can't make the price differential that large.
Just about the only thing they could do with it is further devalue the mileage program, and that's kinda dumb, since, in my experience, people don't just wake up one day and say "I think I'll spend six times the cost of my normal ticket and fly business class".
But what do I know? Already I can't find a reliable way to spend my FB Miles.

feederflight

Hmmmm, if that is going to come, it would show some sort of consistency in their approach to maximize revenue and milk the customer even further.

EK was one of the first ones with the "no frills" Business Class fare where you only get the seat, the famous "H" Class fares that are marginally lower than their lowest "O" all in fares.

QR is doing it to the same extend.

AY was the first one in Europe to implement this for Business on intercontinental flights iirc, but AY is in a desperate situation with a cointinuously deteriorating product in J -> flying via HEL is not an option. They are nowadays as bad as KLM on short haul und long haul (that shows how hot the water is they're in)

Well, the question is how that is going to work out on

- the TATL JV with DL
- codeshare flights in ST
- codeshare flights non ST
- interline fares where AF is the most significant carrier for the itinerary, although interline partners might not have any such "light" option and have the usual 2 pc or 30kg by default, could be funny with stopovers

EK and QR have a neglegible amount of "real" interline fares and if so, the light options are usually not available (some AY operated from ARN/HEL excluded).

And, best question of all: will they find some fluffy excuses to restrict or even eliminate status based lounge access/baggage allowance for light fares?

I can see where they are coming from since unbundling is the new normal, but to make this work, the price points should be noticeably different.

CyBeR

As Goldorak mentions, "unbundling" is nothing more than a scam to sell you the same product in parts for more money combined.

smartytravel

A few days ago, when I called out AF and KLM for these shenanigans and stated that it was downhill from there, some members of this forum called me "hysterical" and overall oppressed me.

Here we go. Continued devaluation and a big f u to passengers.

They still owe refunds to tens of thousands of people from 2020/2021 cancellations.

xiaogangmao

I guess it also depends on how much less is the new fare.

brunos

You mean how much more will be the full service fare?

newflyer27

This is really bad news in my opinion, I really don't believe the fares will be any cheaper, what is "Standard" price today will become "Light. I m gonna monitor some prices in J that I am familiar with to see what really happens.

From my experience, "Light" Y fares are no way cheaper than standard before they introduced this concept, and it just becomes ridiculous when 300/400/500€ tickets or more don't even include luggage. What was a long time ago a "standard minmium" price for a CDG-MAD at 100 euros with a checked bag became a "Light" fare with nothing. From my perspective as platinum , not a big issue but for companions ( my parents with no status), it means they always have to buy the "standard fare". I believe the same will happen with Light J fares.

I guess this new Light J fare will be very restrictive and modying it will incur a hefty fee or it might as well be non modifiable at all although the trend after Covid is that all tickets are modifiable even "Light" fares ( for a fee) but until when? but hey, it seems that's where everyone is moving lately

brunos

You mean how much more will be the full service fare?

For me (HKG), AF is already the most expensive J fare to CDG and far higher than 1-stop fares Same if you fly to other European destination. If that mans that they will again rise the fare for non-elite to get full service, then it is a silly joke.

maalloc

Going to play the devil's advocate here again.

Of course Light fares are no lower than Standard fares when introduced.
Inflation is a thing though, and it's not like airlines have been printing money for the past 10 years so we can't accuse them of milking the customers shamelessly.

A plane costs a given sum of money to fly and the only question is "who's paying what". Personally, I hate what Yield Management did to pricing. Having almost a x10 ratio between lower fares and last-minute tickets makes sense economically but is a pain for travelers, especially FFs.
Having a price structure where, all things equal, FFs get a 25% discount compared to "tourists" is at least fair, and encourages loyalty.

Let's be honest: a domestic Y Light with status is your average Joe's Standard.
Create a lower bucket J where there's no free seat selection, no lounge, no luggage; yet give it all back for free to Elite+, and you basically created a constant promo fare that only makes sense to FFs.

Isn't better than having even more extreme price swings due to dynamic pricing, nickel-and-diming every pax for a can of coke onboard, or cutting down service to save the cost of an olive?

Inflation happens and will keep happening... Giving a break to FFs compared to once-in-a-lifetime pax doesn't look half-bad to me.