AMBurns1512

I was looking to book a short-haul trip to a European city not too far away from my home airport GLA. I had a look at CDG, AMS, CPH and TXL. I've got a choice of carriers from GLA and usually fly BA but had a look at AF and KL. What I am wondering is why are KL fares so expensive compared to BA and AF? Do they have any real differences to AF and BA in European business class that I'm not aware of? I was looking forward to trying KL but when I can get two people in business on BA/AF at a lower cost than one ticket on KL it's put me off. Am I missing anything?

CyBeR

Why are you even looking into business class in Europe? It's practically the same as economy anyway.

AMBurns1512

I accidentally clicked on business instead of economy by mistake when searching GLA-AMS return and almost fell off my chair when it was over £800. Was just wondering if anyone knew why KL were just quite so expensive.

johan rebel

The price is calculated to reflect the value of the free sandwich and newspaper you get, as well as possibly having your drinks served in a real glass.

Johan

Often1

Most of that is not O&D traffic and it's priced high to discourage O&D traffic because the guy flying GLA-BKK in F/J doesn't want to sit in Y for the first segment of what will be a long journey and doesn't much care about the onboard soft product.

For O&D, there are many people who, by contract or custom, are entitled to fly in J. Their assistant books them in J. It's not price sensitive.

hopeful_me

Not sure, as the cost of business class on the likes of A3 or BT is astronomical too, without any long haul traffic. It's mainly the existence of price-indifferent segment of travelers that drives up the price, I would conjecture. What I don't understand is why this market doesn't succumb to the competitive pressure in the same way as the economy class pricing.

Zembla

I suspect that the majority of passengers in that cabin are actually connecting to or from long haul.

FlyerTalker37

+1,
And If I remember correctly you can only book Full Flex J

bodory

Very true.

However it is also possible that KL wants to discourage people to book directly in European C so these very same people can better buy upgrades at OLCI for 649 EUR.

Just saying.

hopeful_me

That doesn't explain the high price. There is no reason to "protect" the cabin from O&D traffic for the sake of long-haul connections as the cost of providing the seat is zero. It's not like the BC cabin cannot be expanded at will; just move the curtain one row back.

hopeful_me

duplicate

Zembla

No, the cost is not zero. Middle seat is kept free, and there is a higher crew per passenger ratio due the more labour intensive service. In fact, when the J cabin is big they add an additional crew member to the flight, who is also on the paylist for the return flight, with a possibly tiny J cabin! Having said that, yes, something like 800 Euro for a 45 minute AMS-CDG seems "a bit" much. But would they make more profit in that cabin if, say, they would make the prices closer to full fare Y? Not sure. I guess there are economics at work which are thought thoroughly through.

NickB

IME, KL short-haul business class fares are not especially high compared to AF nor to many other European carriers like, e.g., LH, AZ, IB, etc...
BA and LX are a different kettle of fish. Both have followed a strategy of offering cheaper business class tickets to many destinations albeit with much more restrictive conditions. Both are trying to attract a premium leisure clientele into their C cabin, at least on certain routes, whereas airlines like KL, AF, LH, etc... are targetting pretty much the business market only with their C class fare range.

ajs123

Most people whom you see in the J cabin on short-haul AF/KL flights either connect to a long-haul flight or were booked on (discounted) company fares. The remainder consists mostly of people who are reimbursed by their employers (not on company fares) and only rare instances of (luxury) travelers flying on their own dime on O&D short haul routes.

Alas the short haul J market has evolved differently in Europe than in the US. There you normally see ow fares in domestic first class that are unimaginable in Europe: SFO-LAX from $121; ow transcon in Delta One (i.e. lie flat seats) starting at around $800 or ow transcon in domestic first from around $330 - those are prices that I regularly pay as the service and hard product match the price. At current regular prices I would never buy a short haul trip with KL in J.

f0zzyNUE

hmmm, compared with AF fares KLM EBC fares are quite expensive.

from NUE I can get to most European cities for 520€ in air france business class (booked via OTA) or 550€ booked on airfrance.com - some other cities (LHR, HEL, LIS) have a minimum price of 630€.

The cheapest KLM business class fare ex NUE for innereuropean flights starts at about 800€.