I fly this route a good amount with revenue J bookings and the interesting thing is that the price is usually great. The J cabin is always filled and predominantly with (really) old people. Its not a business route in my experience, not least because the timing of the flight is different depending on the day of the week but the leisure folks seem eager to not fly coach and pay for that. Also the staff they use on this route is different, I guess they use it for training as its not predominantly a business route which leads to younger and more service minded and attentive staff. Ironically what you'd want on the business routes.

It could also be that the less than daily rotation and thus longer time away from home appeals less to the more tenured crews, where the younger and less settled crew members are more interested in a few days in Bangkok, and crew composition is merely an effect of who bids for the route.

Need advise on strategy
 

I am one week out from travel and that min bid of 1240 USD is not dropping on CPH-JFK. I can see that economy is wide open, business seems to have 15+ seats. I don't want to pay $1240 for that business, and it won't let me put anything less than min bid. How do I handle this situation. Any advise? I am new to SK.

monitor every day. And see what happens the day of

Yea, could be. Regardless of the reason, I welcome having attentive and service minded crew and the dinner service on a night flight not taking 3-4 hours. My last SK977 had an absolute bombshell of a waitress that brought the average age of J staff down by at least 35 years. My SK936 crew on the way back was rude, terrible and consistently over 55 and I'm sure I was still sitting with my dessert plate by the time we flew over KEF. The BKK-SIN-SFO SQ crews and service on the TP were nothing short of outstanding.

Completely agree, the old-timers are often the rude ones, while the young ones are energetic and friendly. Just this week on a longhaul flight to asia, when serving food, the old lady just kept saying "What do you want" without providing menu beforehand or saying what's available... The young guy kept coming back and asking if I wanted more bread/drinks and so on. Really hope the old timers get put in their place, also since it's usually them that cause the strikes.

I do not agree. I haven't noticed any difference in performance based on age.

Well, 3:1 then… only bad experiences with the legendary grumpy and rude Danish granny gang while all flights with young Swedish crews were really excellent.

But worst flight I had with a middle aged all-male Norwegian crew ex-OSL… those guys were so sloooooow, stoic and uninterested. Mind blowing they decided to work in any kind of service-oriented job.

Is this thread turning into an episode of Mad Men?

It has always been. Some people just feel emboldened these days. 🫠

CPH-ORD on Jan 25. Flight was C9 Y9 up to check-in. Min bid for premium climbed in the week leading up and was the same as business at 6000 sek when I checked in. Business went to live bidding and I stayed in 2nd place with 6000 + Diamond booster. Top bid was 7972 sek. No changes to the bids and I was upgraded.

Cabin was full during the flight but I was able to switch seats after the upgrade cleared.

Also noticed that the loads on EF get zeroed out or show a C1 Y1 around the time of check-in so are not accurate indicators that close in.

Return flight on the 29th is J8 Y9 with min bids of 7900 sek for C and 4500 for Y

Bid of 8000 sek + diamond booster accepted with C7 Y9 3 minutes before check-in opened. No live bidding & now showing C6 Y9 so I guess I was the only bidder.

if not too late, maybe good to check cost to upgrade at airport - points and cash...

My bid was accepted, so too late for me, but I am curious as there are still several available seats.

I suppose you can still ask check-in agent for the price to upgrade if they have free seats :)