Upgrade inventory - opening up differently depending on sector?
 

Just wondering whether anyone has experience something similar?

Two NRT - FRA trips via DXB within a couple of weeks. Both times, DXB-FRA sector is available for upgrade (Y to J) right away, while NRT-DXB only opens up a couple of days before, even though there was huge availability on Narita sector to begin with. As a matter of fact, one of the flights was on New Year's Eve and maybe 4-5 passengers in J in total.

I've also noticed upgrade availability to be much easier to Germany than other places. Perhaps inventory is controlled by EK Germany, hence the difference?

So Germany might be the positive exception, not Japan the negative one. I'll ask next time in Germany ...

I would think it's a safe bet that inventory is controlled centrally out of DXB.

And it might be more to do with yield management than anything. For example, there are 2 flights a day to FRA (morning and afternoon) yet only 5 flights a week to NRT, which means J class capacity is obviously a lot less.