cas_de

Well it's not that easy (and I didn't propose that, btw)...

The major concern of the FT/VFT folks was and is, that the only perk that was left for a SEN travelling in Y was ASR for the emergency exit row. A significant number of SEN (those like myself who's stuck in the back of the bus because of an all-Y corporate travel policy) do make long haul reservations at relativ short notice. In the "good ol' days" these SEN were pretty sure to still snatch a seat in an emergency exit row, because these seats were blocked for the non status folks. Now, with advance purchase of these for everyone it is rather likely that the emergency exit row seats are gone by the time a SEN books.

Hence, the consensus was that €60 is probably too cheap to keep non status people from buying these seats at time of booking and this is how the discussion started. RCS gave an example from AF where the emergency exit row seats are gone long time before the flight. Options that were discussed were to keep the system as it is and then open up the purchase of emergency exit row seats either one week / 72 hrs / ... before ETD.

Just my $.02

Lack

ASR for exit row is my main draw to SEN as well. There's just not enough non-miserable seats on board LH birds for the Y traveling crowd.
However, that's becoming less of an issue with US airlines offering increased pitch across many rows, thats free for elites and for example KLM offering the same to Asia.
We'll see how the introduction of Y+ on LH will look like.

outgoing

I am curious to which arguments they agreed. I still have 3 TATLs and think if I should go for AA or hit SEN with LH

SleepOverGreenland

Well, the exit row reservation for "just" 60 bucks is a good deal for the well in advance bookers on cheapest fares. If the fee will be low the seats will be all gone before most frequent flyers even know that they might fly on a certain to a certain destination. Since AF has such in place it is a comparable situation with all seats booked early on. Carsten Spohr then joked that AF isn't doing a good job not raising the prices with that success. This was taken by an attendee recommending higher fees for that reservation by LH initially. I sensed some broad agreement on this by the group.

So your lynch mob will be busy.

NewbieRunner

Dr Huber is SVP for Product and Marketing, Lufthansa German Airlines rather than M&M. Andreas Koch is Director of M&M.

mapu

I don't really get it, would this €200 surcharge apply to non-SENs only or to everyone?

SuperFlyBoy

This was reportedly an FTers suggestion to LH and was taken by them as feedback, apparently.

This amount was said to have been suggested due to most of the EE rows being purchased immediately by non-status pax.

The higher rate was proposed in order to discourage this behavior and to allow SENs and HONs booking closer-in a chance to book these as well.

(It would also increase LH revenue, of course - if purchased outright)

N1003U

200€ was someone's wild guess at a reasonable market price, but the idea, when further discussed (as I understood the discussion), was that the SEN could buy with ASR, and non-status could buy at check-in.

But the fee for premium/exit row seats would apply to everyone.

NA-Flyer

I think this is LH main motive, of course, not pleasing HONs and SENs

SuperFlyBoy

Seriously - we cannot reserve EE seats now as SEN in advance without paying for it in Y??

(However, it looks like I'll be booking LH only to get rid of instruments now...)

SuperFlyBoy

Of course!

I think my post was well-balanced and informed only the facts.

N1003U

The LH contingent was quite clear on their tactical strategy: extract as much revenue as possible from as many passengers as possible.

It is a good strategy.

The problem is that there are many ways to execute such a strategy. Some ways aggravate and alienate your customers, others make them happy that they spent the extra money, and bind them to your business.

I am not convinced that LH has yet developed such a good sense of taste to differentiate amongst the various revenue-extraction methods.

NewbieRunner

I agree with you entirely. There are ways to raise the same revenue without alienating their status customers. For example, allowing SEN/HON to reserve exit row seats at the time of booking for a fee and only releasing them to other customers shortly before departure. It doesn't cost them anything extra (or very little in additional admin). I don't think they've fully realised the value of exit row seat reservations for many status customers even for a fee.

Rambuster

Currently they are applying "open wallet surgery" trying to extract all the cash available ... unfortunately without anestesia.

SuperFlyBoy

+1.

Exactly! ^