ComputerCommuter

I came back from AMS the other day, we had a Boeing. Whilst the seat was wider - narrow middle seat, the "Pitch" distance between me and seat in front felt just like economy. I'm usually in row 1 or 2 (front rows) so maybe it was just me. On the plus side I had a great crew who I have flown with several times before and made the journey a pleasure ^ . Pity it was so short!

Interestingly, has anyone else noticed that you don't see the same CSA crew faces as regularly as other airlines. BA - I see the same faces every couple of months, LH, the same. CSA not so frequent. Again maybe just me!

Kvet01

If you had a Boeing you would indeed be seated in the two front rows - but these are a little bit confusingly numbered 2 and 3. What used to be row 1 is taken up by wardrobes. I usually ask for the second row (row no 3) because legroom on the first row (row no 2) can be so limited that any other seat on the plane (including Y) has more - and you can at least put your feet under the seat in front of you; something you cannot do on the first row of some old Boeings. But as I understand these are being sold - so that will be over soon. Also as far as I know they are normally only used on the PRG-AMS-PRG flights OK622 and OK623 - mid-day flights I personally do not use very often.

On the Airbusses the situation is much better; pitch is also better. And the first row is called row 1.

I don't have a good memory for faces - but I agree that it seems the cabin crews are really deployed all over the place. There is more stability in check-in agents in AMS (you really need veterans as the byzantine complexity of the upgrade process is not easily explained, and some never find out). OK - maybe it is not so complicated (first card color, then order of arrival, and only for applicable booking classes). But still. And CSA themselves don't help things by changing the set of upgradable booking classes every other week.

Kvet01

How full a plane is does not mean too much for profitability. There is only a very small difference between the rates say from BRQ to AMS, or BRQ to SVO and the respective PRG-AMS and PRG-SVO flights. So the BRQ-PRG leg is more of a CZK 700 (EUR 30) per leg service to keep people from flying from VIE than a big profit generator.

And the completion of the motorway section connecting the D1 to PRG airport makes the business case for the BRQ-PRG flight without a connecting flight go away completely. Even a taxi nowadays will be just as fast (and cheaper) if you need to go city center to city center.

I think the main business of CSA is ferrying continental Western Europeans (France, Belgium, Holland, Northern Germany) to Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Near East (and the other way round). That's it. The UK market is too crowded with LCCs; also the frequency of flights from the UK is too low.

bobsmo

You miss one in between color of card and order of arrival.......paid amount for class you booked.

If there are ie

2 Golds
1 Business seat available

officially, the higher paid class should go first....not order of arrival.

But places do it differently I know.

ComputerCommuter

Do gate staff know the cost of your flight? My tickets usually show M or Y but I know the ticketing class (price paid) is 9 times out of 10 different from that shown. Probably at Prague they can look this up but at outstations ?

bobsmo

Absolutely yes, as it's happened to me 3x in the past years....twice to my favour and once against me.

Note though, never in Amsterdam....don't know if they check.

All depends on if and where they do the upgrades as well....like LHR (until the stop them of course) and SOF will give you the upgrade when you check-in.....so there, order of arrival is key it seems.....OTP, you go on a waiting list at check-in (like PRG)....AMS...well, they don't care at check-in and you hope at the gate.

And if I remember my earlier flights this year, IEV and SVO were also waiting listed at check-in and pick up gate.

letel

I don't think we can compare the flight BRQ-PRG with the taxi from center to center as the flight was mainly aimed to make a connection in Prague and then to bring the customers to the international flights (instead of having them flying another airline and also from another airport): simply to feed the hub. It was/is possible to book only a trip between PRG-BRQ but as far as I remember (I made a simulation on the booking system some times ago) it was much more expensive than the 700 CZK mentioned.
I believe that flight itself isn't "directly" highly profitable but what needs to be studied are the "undirect" profits: how many passengers fly CSA from Prague thanks to the fight from Brno and by consequence if it is profitable.

Anyway it seems the BRQ-PRG will be operated 3 times a day by Central Connect Airlines (in sharecode agreement with CSA) after CSA ceases operating it. http://byznys.lidovky.cz/csa-konci-s...ln-doprava_nev
Finally it will the same aircrafts and crew (as CCA has been operating that flight for CSA for almost 2 years). We will see for the fares.

DanDuda

The idea to stop operating flights to London is the most stupid idea CSA could have come up with. The UK is among the Top 10 countries from where their frequent flyers come. The flights LHR-PRG were not running empty. From November man of us are certainly not going to buy two tickets if we want to fly to Baltics or South Europe, just to fly with CSA from Prague. Thus CSA will surely lose people on other flights as well, as we will have to move on to other airlines. The airlines of all other Central European countries fly to London (LOT, Malev, etc.). Why would CSA be an exception? I do not understand why such a short-sighted decision was made. Once they pull off, it will be difficult, if not impossible to come back! It's sad to see CSA go down the drain just because of ineffective management.

Kvet01

I was referring to the AMS practice - probably in PRG they do it as you describe. AMS generally does not even care about whether there you paid an applicable booking class, let alone that they would use it to determine precedence. In AMS the check-in agent will write down the color of your card and the sequence number in your card color and take it from there. So the upgrade order is then P1,P2,P3...G1,G2,G3...,S1,S2,S3, where the actual arrival order may be that all plats come last. Not that you stand a big chance as a Silver in AMS as competition for upgrades is fierce, and a lot of Golds and Plats are using that connection. And the card color matching offer they currently have I believe has lead to many more Golds.

bobsmo

I just really want the Red Sauce with Vegetables to stop already in the Business Class meals....Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner, itīs always there....for over a year now already....enough is enough.

ComputerCommuter

Agreed!! it's yuck

Kvet01

ComputerCommuter - if your locations and your screenname imply that you regularly commute between LHR and PRG then that problem will solve itself in a few months - unless you decide to put in a stopover on your way, and fly CSA from/to PRG. But the red sauce indeed would not be the reason to do that :-)

rejden

good for you, but for me the changes are insane, I already was waiting 3 - 6 hours in Prague on in-bound for Athens / Skopje and now they reduce the flights to Bratislava to a two a day? All this years I was avoiding Vienna because it was more convenient to fly from BTS but now after I get my platinum, hunderds of thousands of miles I need to switch to different alliance, makes me really sad I just hope they won't go bankrupt before I spent my close to 400k miles which I have on them and I don't use them very often, only for mi wife thou. I'm going to get 2x business class round the world soon and bye bye Czech Airlines.

CSA sucks big time.

Any hints for Card Match to star alliance? Miles and More would be good, since both Lufthansa and Austrian have a good footing in Vienna.

really, really sad

rejden

Yeah, it sucks, especially with scrambled eggs, you have to have MBA to make decisions like that most likely

Gnopps

Is this the red sauce you are talking about? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...-y-c-pics.html

To serve a business class meal of fried cheese and chopped vegetables (note not salad) really felt sub-standard.