RDU-LGW to remain B777
 

Full with remorse, AA has decided against putting a B763 on RDU-LGW this summer. The flight will continue to operate with a B777. Makes sense as this flight is usually full in F and J, although Y may go out with only 60 passengers.

So GSK won, eh?

Or AA realized they had an extra B777 on hand. They're slow sometimes.

This was noticed a while back when the system was just updated. The hypothesis was that the 763 may have been simply a computer error, but either way, this is true. It is great news, at least for those of us in RDU.

Also, while everyone here talks about Y going out empty, I have done 10 or so trips on this plane and never had Y go out less than 60% full. These have all been on the outbound. On the return to RDU, I have NEVER seen more than 5 free seats in Y, and that was seldom. Maybe its just since I travel mostly during high season, but its not nearly as bad when I go as some would believe.

By the way, welcome to Flyertalk!

The B777 goes out light in Y during the off season. It is full during holidays/summers. However, yearround, AA174/AA173 has the lowest load factor of any AA transatlantic flight yet the highest yield due to F and J.

Wow, that's really hard to believe, especially since it so much easier to score award seats on that flight, as compared to others. Also with all of the GSK upgrades, how much real paid F is there? There is certainly paid F on some of the ORD-LHR and JFK-LHR flights.

I would have thought LAX-LHR might have rather high yields.

There is a very low number of paid F but about 40 J (GSK contract fare) passengers a day. These fill up the J cabin and some upgrade to F.

People do pay for F on that flight.... not a whole cabin full, but enough to make things interesting.

There are a few Glaxo employees who fly paid F on the flight... at least there were back when I was AA. I used to look!

The RDU-LGW route has specific contract requirements from a very large company that pays for this service. The F service is unlike any other IFS service in the AA system. It will be an extremely cold day when this route has anything less than a 777.

It has been difficult for AA to keep the B777 on the route due to the light loads in Y during some periods. And this flight is not subsidized, as some think. As a matter of fact, it operated with a B762 for many years. The F class service, à la carte, is different than other IFS flights. However, this was to be a test and later to be expanded to all other IFS flights. Budget cutbacks at food and beverage made this impossible, but AA174/AA173 have kept this unique feature.

sluggoaafa's comments are cute, but unfortunately not close to reality. AA could only dream of a "very large company that pays for this service." Like GSK would pay to have a different F class service!!!

Um yeah....Make sure you read the TS report...yeah...
 

um...yeah. Unfortunately, I must inform you that there is a large corporate account that does specifically pay for this type of special service. Hence why the F product is much different than any other IFS route.

Unless they decided to lie to the Purser group,(which I highly doubt) I have a hard time believing anything else.

oh, and welcome to FT :cool:

Can you say more about this? Exactly how is the service different? Like, better food? Different entertainment? More attentive service? I can see room for differences, but it's not obvious what or how...

Deleted.

Bring It Back To Topic....
 

Please keep out the personal attacks or baiting..... thanks everyone.

Well bummer... now I'm going to have to spend some miles and fly F on this route just to see what the service is all about. :D

Last time I saw the P & L's for international flights, this one was surprisingly near the top of the list.