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Any thoughts on why the BA4600 Japan Airlines LHR-HND codeshare availability seems wide open in business class all of a sudden (I class in particular) for Monday 19th June, but no other date?

I'm keen to fly JAL business at BA fares but almost never see anything other than J or C classes with availability.

Is anyone familiar as to how/when BA sells these JAL seats, or is it revenue management black magic?

19th Jun
BA4600 F0 A0 J9 C9 D9 R9 I9 W9 E0 T0 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9 G0

Andriyko

The marketing carrier's availability usually mirrors the operating carrier's availability in free flow codeshare arrangements. To answer your question look how wide open the flight is under JL code.

DFB_london

even through BA codes, JAL only rarely sells at BA's lowest fares. In short, JAL is a top quality airline and has the best timed Heathrow departure time means they don't have to.

You get what you pay for - if you like dirty cabins, and a very average airline with jet-lag-Orama departure times then BA is the one. If not, you usually have to pay up.

as an alternative think about Finnair via Helsinki.

Andriyko

JL does not sell 'through' BA. BA sells its own inventory, and if the flight is full then there is nothing to sell. We get it - you are of low opinion of BA, but airlines do not manage inventory like that. They do not say 'oh, let's go read Flyertalk and see which airline's product is considered better and then we'll price that airline's flights higher and zero out the lowers inventory in the cabin'. BA flights to HND have zero I or R or even D class availability on its own services to HND as well on many days through late October. Simply because there is demand. BA, AY and JL share revenue anyway so it simply would not matter who sells the flight. I don't know the specifics of that route, but if JL has better timings/connection opportunities then its flights will sell out first. A better seat will have nothing to do with that. Look at BA's other JV partner - AA. If you're looking to buy a flight to a U.S. destination through AA you will often see that the lowest booking classes across all cabins are sold out on BA operated flights but are wildly available on AA operated flights, simply because BA's flights are in greater demand despite an almost worship like conviction here that AA is better.

As I mentioned before, in an arrangement like BA has with JL (or AA) the codeshare partner will always mirror the inventory of the operating carrier as their systems speak in real time. If there is no I class under JL flight number then there won't be any under BA flight number either for that flight.

BA6501

Another thing I've seen on this route is BA does not have much/any I class availability in UK POS but has plenty, last time I looked, in EU POS (France for me).

Calchas

This is not true at all in my experience with BA and AA codeshares on each other. Indeed it doesn't even make sense because BA and AA do not even map the same number of buckets per cabin. It is very frequent that the codeshares are not synchronized, and indeed this is a reason that the help desk will quote the "wrong" price: because they insist on using a BA prefix (which has zero I class) instead of the desired AA prefix (which is I9).

As an example, I picked a random date and highlighted the differences in the first row.

Here you see only BA is willing to sell an F seat but neither AY nor AA will on their codeshares.

Turning to JL & BA, again the same discrepancy applies

If I have misapprehended you and told you something you already knew let me know.

Calchas

This is really supposed to be illegal under EC 1008/2008, but they all do it

Andriyko

Sorry for my English and that I did not make myself clear. In a free flow codeshare arrangement there is mirroring of availability. Maybe 'mirror' is a wrong word here. There is no 100% synchronization. The availability synchronizes but to a certain extent. If there are only 1 or 2 F seats left on the flight, of course, the codeshare partner would stop selling because only the operating carrier knows whether it is an oversell. But all of these free flow and JB arrangements are metal neutral. What I meant to say is that JL does not actively limit what BA can sell on its flights. What happens is when the availability becomes scarce the codeshare partner limit what's available.

And it does not depend on the mapping. BA's R maps into AA's D, but if AA has low I availability BA will restrict both I and R availability. Or sometimes AA can have 4 seats in D but BA will have 9 seats in R and 1 in I. It is mostly the codeshare's carrier's decision what to sell.