Thanks! There is already an "occasional" 733 used on the route but very rare ads not on a regular basis.....I'd sure like to see more of them.

That's because NW's inflight services are pathetic in comparison to CO's, the latter carrier even serves complimentary meals on many domestic flights in Y.

Regardless of what one may think of NW's inflight services (I have always found them to perfectly fine) the fact that NW has FC on its ERJ-190 & CRJ-900 is that those are larger planes that can more easily accommodate FC, while CO is limited to the smaller RJ's by its scope clause. Having an FC section on a 50-seat ERJ-135 or 145 with one f/a would be somewhat difficult to accommodate.

Also, adding one or two rows of FC would reduce the total capacity on these planes, something CO senior management does not believe is in the best interest of the company.

The result, of course, is that approximately 50% of CO's daily flights are operated by the regional carriers on a/c that do not have FC. If you are a CO frequent flyer based in CLE, for example, you have very few mainline departures.

CO's undersized premium cabins are really one of my biggest issues with this airline. I'm new to CO and have already had two experiences where I wanted to buy an F ticket but couldn't because every flight for an entire day is sold out in F. The most recent example is a flight I have this coming Tuesday between EWR and SFO. I have a paid ticket in the F cabin and now may need to make a change to a flight earlier in the day. It's still more than 48 hours before the flight and every EWR-SFO for the entire day is showing zeroed out in F. Wednesday's flights have only a single seat. If I do end up needing to change, I will end up just refunding my CO fare and buying an F seat on another non-stop, probably from JFK. I'd really like to try to give CO a chance to earn my business but the ridiculously underzied F cabins are making it very difficult.

I just made a spreadsheet to calculate the percentage of F seats in CO's and NWA's domestic fleets (multiply each aircraft's seat count by the number of aircraft in the fleet). Yes, I have too much time on my hands. When I get more I'll add DL's fleet.

I assumed all CO 738s and 739s had the extra 2 seats, as I have no idea of how many have been done. I put the 752s in COs domestic fleet, but did not include NWA's WBC 752s. This results in a trivial improvement and decline in CO's and NWA's averages, respectively.

Including all express/connection/airlink aircraft, we get:

CO: 7.4% of domestic seats are F
NW: 10.2% of domestic seats are F

Does anyone have a count of upgraded 738's (16 and 20 F seats, instead of 14 and 18) and 739s?

Also, what's CO Express's current fleet? I am using:
E135: 30
E145: 175
CRJ-200: 25

For CO Connection I have:
Q200: 15
Q400: 3
S340: 42
1900D: 26

I did not include CO's 767s or 777s. The few domestic flights they do (2 weekly for the 777?) mean they don't really matter. For NWA I didn't include the A330, 747, or WBC 757s (16 of 55, right?).

HNL is domestic, though BF so no EUAs. That would add 6x 767s daily, across the 762, 764 and 76H configs depending on the day. Similarly, a number of the 737s and 757s operate on International routes, as do the ERJs.

The statistics are also skewed because the average stage length on mainline will be higher than on Connection/Express, so the number of enplanements for the smaller planes is likely higher, meaning that on a per-flight basis the number of F seats are even lower.

It works out pretty well; what I calc'd counts almost all EUA flights except the rare IAH-EWR 767 (30ish flights/week) or 777 (2/week). Any improvement that these aircraft bring would be tiny, and would be balanced out by the fact that the 752s (9.1% F) are often used on non-EUA routes.

But per butt-in-seat hour (which is what really counts) the ratio works out, assuming that each aircraft has people in it for a similar number of hours/day.

Two things: CO does not plan to install F on its regional aircraft and again, NW's F services on regional aircraft are minimal, as CO even serves small meals on single-class applicable regional flights, e.g. EWR - MSP.

I believe CO can resolve the "undersized" premium cabin problem by going back to pre-9/11 fare levels:

close to $2,000 for full Y (no Y-up), and over $2,000 for F (IAH-West/East Coast & Coast-to-Coast)

Did you include the 2x daily 767 that runs NRT-GUM and offers EUA?

Seriously though, I think that the stats are accurate enough and show what we all know - CO doesn't have that many F seats. It is interesting to see how many here would pay for F/Y-UP on the transcons, but at the same time CO also uses the same planes on EWR-MCO, where the number of paid F/Y-UP is way lower, the frequencies are higher and the fares are lower (though not on a per mile basis (A fare - $759 to LAX; $449 to MCO). CO would need to sell enough F/Y-UP seats to make up for the removal of the Y seats, so the ratio skews even more. I believe that CO has run the numbers based on their sales history and they know that they'd rather be sold out than have empties.

For all the posts here bemoaning the lack of F seats available, that means that CO has sold out the front cabin on F and Y-UP fares. That's a lot of money. Based on the current CASM and fares the F cabin on a 737transcon accounts for about 25% of the revenue needed to cover the costs of the flight (~$10K of ~$40K). The other 150 seats need to sell at ~$200 each to make a profit on the flight. Given the number of folks who talk about buying H and Y fares and being stuck in the back, I'm sure that CO isn't having too much trouble making that $200/person number. I know that many of the passengers connect onwards and that the revenue cannot all be attributed to the single flight, but the numbers aren't all that bad for CO. I agree that they can probably increase the fares on that route a reasonable amount and continue to sell the seats, but they've resisted that tact thus far for some reason, and I'm sure they have one.

Id say USair has the smallest FC to YC ratio..then again thier Inflight service is noted to be very poor..Nobody wants to buy the product..