intuition

Today the late afternoon block had 9 Asian longhaul departures. The exact seating capacity in J on these 9 planes was 376 seats. Applying the passenger loadfactor of September 2014 (assuming passenger loadfactor is evenly distributed across Y/J ) at 83,8% for Asian traffic, the number of J pax from Finnair traffic was approx. 315, all undoubtedly with lounge access.

Assuming 10 status pax in Y on each flight adds another 90 with access.
Assuming 10% of status pax do bring a guest adds 9 more.

Further AY also has some other non-schengen departures (to Russia on ATRs etc), but I'm gonna keep them out of the equation.


However, in the same time frame a JL 788 and a BA A320 departs with a total of 94 J seats. Load factor is unknown, but 66 more J pax does seem a reasonable number IMHO.

These flights surely also has a few status pax in Y, especially the BA799 to LON. Adding another 20 pax seems a conservative bid.

Now we are totalling a whopping 503 guests to the non-schengen lounges, that has a maximum capacity of 372.

Of course, not all of these pax are transiting, but those who do surely will go to the lounge. Those who originate HEL may be lesser inclined to use the lounge. But it is not very hard to see that the lounge capacity is way off.

Even if AY restricted access to J pax only (defying OW rules!), it would be quite full.




PS another interesting set of numbers is:
Business class lounge is 1000 sq meters and hold 250 guests - 4 sq metres / guest. The premium lounge accepts 112 guests on 400 sq meters, 3,6 sq metres / guest. I feel so privileged.

WilcoRoger

You should add to the 503 pax those on the inbounds with onward connections - again I'd venture to say a low-hundred number.

At our pre-opening meeting I chatted with the AY lady (sorry, forgot her name) and she explicitly said that the rather admissive Premium lounge policy is to ease the burden on the overloaded C lounge. Understandable, but not working. Instead of easing the pressure it just downgrades the Premium lounge, too.

Now 2 months in I'd say could be time to review the policy.

jakas

Gonna check it out next week so lets see. Have a long haul to DEL

NoWindowSeat

Intuition, great info and thanks for the work! I think that should be shared with AY..they obviously should know the maths but worth reminding and asking how they think this will work going forward?

intuition

I actually have approached someone at AY with the gist of that post, but it fell to the ground. Not because of disinterest, but because AY is a very compartmentalized and disconnected company. In plain english - this person could not understand there could be any trouble with the lounges. Most employees has the marketing material as their main knowledge - ie they are convinced AY has very good lounge offerings.

I'd be happy to share insights and ideas with AY but it has to be a 2-way communication. But we all know AY cannot even have an active company rep on FT, so no need to dream about that!

nordic

Not wanting to be an AY apologizer but one has to admit that some of the connections are so tight that there is no time for a lounge visit.

intuition

Yes, that is true. Some will chose to go to gate instead of lounge.

NoWindowSeat

intuition, if you want myself and/or SPBanker could politely share those calculations with the AY contact we have, same gentleman who organized the visit to the lounge in question earlier this year?

Just let us know what you think.

intuition

Well, it could be interesting and hopefully some good answers can come out of it. Even if it turns out that I made some mistake in the assumptions. So give it a try!

Detailed observations below in case that is needed/helpful. The source of load factor is AY traffic report sept 2014, released oct 7.

Please post back any results - if nothing can be said publicly I'd appreciate a PM.





Sample date: 2104-10-22
Time of day: 17:05-18:05

WilcoRoger

At our meeting there was a lady who is incharge of the lounges (her title was different, maybe land-operations?) - she might be the one to reach out to.

Today morning - what a bliss compared to the afternoons. With only 2 flights leaving (BA and AY to LHR) there was space, comfort, peace... though strangely the food offering was not as good as in the afternoons.

Peregrine415

Currently sitting at Premium Lounge while waiting for my midnight flight to HKG. It's quiet, spacious and a major improvement from the old lounge. The food offering is better and wine, spirits and Champagne are available free of charge. There's also a sleep/relax area, perfect for those long layovers to JFK or Asia. I'll post pictures as soon as I can figure out how to upload them.

Herman ze German

Been there now and see what you mean. I changed in the changing room (which is not a private room I believe as you cannot lock it from the inside), it has two lockers for clothes with numeric locks but I wasn't able to work them so I just left my stuff in the unlocked locker (my valuables where in the locker next to the check-in desk).

I then proceeded to the Sauna. (Unfortunately) it nowhere says that this is a Unisex Sauna and when I opened the Sauna shower room a Lady was very surprised (I retreated immediately and we negotiated through the door that I would wait another 5 minutes). Overall t was a very strange experience but something I will not forget soon

remymartin

How would you communicate a sauna is unisex? Isn't it the opposite, where you'd have male or female signs if it were not unisex?

Herman ze German

you could put up a sign saying that this is used by both sexes or have both symbols on the door (The changing rooms do have pictograms) Anyway the Lady was obviously not quite prepared for someone else entering the shower room while she was in there.

remymartin

Then she was likely neither German nor Finnish