Comfort cabin on SH?
 

Upgraded my flights to/from MAD and noticed for the first time that they listed the MAD flight front seats as Comfort Cabin instead of Business. I'm pretty sure that earlier these have been listed as Business Cabin, at least on LHR flights. Has something changed here?

Just flew MAD-HEL today, and the front cabin was definitely labeled as Business Class on my BP.

I don't want to speculate too much, but what comes to mind is some sort of re-branding of the front cabin. SK calls theirs SK Plus or something, right? Why not call it Comfort on AY instead of Business Class? It would not be a bad idea since people tend to anticipate a lot more than AY has to offer when they call it Business Class. Call it Comfort and they can get away with all the enhancements a lot more easily...

AY has used the Comfort Class label before when selling J cabin seats on widebody charter flights and currently use "Comfort" for the extra legroom seats in the first few rows of the Y cabin on longhauls.

Yes it sounds like a product on a one-class flight - like on the charter flights where no-one expects anything but economy, but where the planes are two-class.

On one hand, this is likely a mistake. On the other hand, someone put those lables in the system. Even if the usage was a mistake, why have a "Comfort" designator laying around without any reason?


I'd be very surprised if they launched such a thing without any marketing, but if we are to engage in some speculation.. Yes, this is the sort of thing SK has done. They just frankly declared SH business class dead. But they still wanted to keep their 2-class business model, so they offer "plus".

Now, doing this would be a 180 for Finnair, but I guess they have routes where SH sells very badly and where there are very few connecting pax in J. I'm sure many of the seasonal summer destination in Europe could be operated in a all-econ config, with foucs on selling tax-free and drinks to charter people.

With the JV in place and both IB and AY in it, it doesn't make sense to downgrade this route.

It's also one of the longest Euro routes, so if any route warrants J, this would. On my flights late April and today, J was 6 rows and many of the J pax were Asian, most likely Japanese (based on which flights were shown on the Connections screen upon landing at HEL). Many Finns in J, too, though.

I wonder if the JV really has an impact here, though. Do people fly to the US via MAD? Without looking at IB TATL schedules, my guess would be that eastbound might work, westbound not so.

It would also be interesting to know if the MAD route brings in any money. They fly A321s which usually seem at capacity, but that one plane does nothing all day except flies MAD-HEL-MAD with a 1.5 hour layover at HEL (actually today, this really was the case as the exact plane was to fly back to MAD the same day). On other routes, the same plane could fly FIN-HEL-EUR-HEL-EUR-HEL-FIN, which surely should bring in more money. Nowadays, AY saves some money by using MAD-based cabin crews, but still...

I tried to book it, with money and with points, and not a word about comfort.

HEL-MAD-HEL was business class and TMP in economy.

The Ticket is Business, this is how it showed online. Checked one of the upgraded TMP-HEL-LHR-HEL-TMP bookings again, there the upgraded segment was Business Cabin.

Surely there's the Japan JV as well...

Just booked flights to LHR in Y. Upgraded the A350 segment to J and received a confirmation saying "Comfort matkustusluokka". (MMB says I'm booked in Business (F).)

Those new flight numbers look super strange. AY1331 sounds like some obscure charter destination like Dalaman or whatever :D

I thought it was only BA, JL, AY. But if IB is part of the Japan JV, then this of course makes more sense, since all AY's Japanese flights coincide nicely with the MAD schedule.

Like today I checked my upcomings and there is AY807. Few second had to wait and think why I'm going to MUC and who booked this for me. :D

(807 is later this year HEL-ARN)

IB is, since last year. And offer their own MAD-NRT direct flight as part of the JV.

This seems a bit worrying. How about asking AY about your upgrade, asking why your confirmation says different class than to which you tried to upgrade?

I don't think it would be of any use at this time. If it is indeed something they are planning but haven't revealed yet (other than by mistake here), then CS won't know anything about it and will probably just say everything is OK.

I just tried to amend a booking (change a flight time) in business class, but when confirming the change the business designator has changed to 'Comfort' for two legs of the journey (even on a flight I haven't amended). It still shows and 'I' class business fare - so I assume the comfort label is a mistake?