wolfpacktrojan

channa

It's fantastic for upgrades. As the beneficiary of said upgrades, I think it's fantastic. That said, it's challenging your assertion that they're only selling an occasional seat or two for $499 here or there. They're selling many of them for $0 (or $150 in the back, if you want to look at it that way).



When you see them underselling F cabins, you can infer something. When your MVP friend boasts a 100% upgrade rate on multiple transcons and we've both experienced F cabins with empty seats on transcons, combined with AS's official comments on the matter, you can infer quite a bit.

Yes, you're technically correct -- every time you see a situation like this, AS could have sold 5-8 seats per flight to people who didn't pick a seat. Technically possible. Likely not. They're overselling Y to undersell F.

fly18725

This can be a particularly good strategy in markets without strong paid premium demand. With most corporate travel policies restricting purchase of F, you can sell Y at an equal (or higher) price point and fill F with upgrades.

sfozrhfco

Which worked well for them for many years in SEA/PDX but is failing miserably in California which is dragging down their overall profitability. So either they try a different strategy for California or continue to claim to be clueless as to why they are performing so poorly on California transcons. Pushing the credit card to get people to get a two for one ticket with double points and free status while paying rock bottom fares and getting free upgrades to F is just not a winning strategy for them to do anything other than filling seats at a loss. The markets are just too competitive out of California and they don't have a product worth a significant premium and in many markets have an inferior product. They seem to have gotten rid of their route planning department and are coasting along this year banging their head against the wall and wondering why they still have a headache.

Flying for Fun

Or, AS might be holding back a few seats for operational reasons. Don't pilots sit in F when flying to their plane?

James in Dubai.

channa

6 or so seats on bunches of transcon flights?


Sure, I get this on SJC-BUR. But they do this on flights like SFO-JFK too, while competitors can't add enough premium cabin space.

fly18725

channa

Of course it is. But you're also choosing to ignore the context here. AS said they're having premium cabin yield issues in California to Boston and New York transcons. These are many of the markets where they have a materially weaker premium product.

jetBlue does exactly what you're saying out of secondary markets (e.g., OAK and SMF). Out of major markets (SFO and LAX), jetBlue stopped doing that and came out with Mint, and Delta previously failed at it with Song. There's plenty of data points if you want to see what's worked and what hasn't. AS is welcome to try again, though.

tphuang

I can confirm that WN in general does poorly on transcon and EWR. And the 2 routes they are cutting due to MAX are underperforming routes. They were never added to be successful, but to annoy AS. I don't think WN is under delusion that these routes will do well long term. I think they were also added to utilize the gates at EWR that they have, since EWR might get back on slots soon.

also, since WN does not sell F on SAN-EWR, the reason your upgrade didn't clear is most likely not due to WN not flying that day. In general, AS performance on SAN-EWR and SJC-EWR/JFK have been abysmal. SJC-JFK is especially bad given that it's a daytime flight eastbound.

sfozrhfco

And WN has a very small portion of their ASMs on transcons while AS has a much bigger percentage of transcons and on a base of far fewer flights overall per day. So as the ALK management has seen, that underperformance has had an immediate impact on their profitability. The strange thing is that management is still surprised years later how low transcons fares are from California. Maybe check google flights every once in a while to check fares on other airlines? LOL They need to get used to losing money--even with lower costs--on many of these routes, figure out a strategy to make them profitable, or just declare defeat and move on to other routes they feel would be a better fit for their product and FF benefits. Doing nothing and expecting a different result is just very poor management which drags down the company for no good reason.

wolfpacktrojan

I suppose I could have been more clear, but I wasn't implying I couldn't get upgraded because WN canceled SAN-EWR. I was trying to say it might bode well for AS going forward on this route, as they were clearly selling more F seats than before. I was getting upgraded on SAN-EWR throughout most of 2018 as MVP, with up to 8 people clearing into F per flight, and now I'm not clearing as Gold. WN canceling the route might help fill the back of the bus though, as fares on AS tend to be lower than on UA.