channa

It's also bad for people looking to buy them. Fewer seats means decreased supply, higher prices, or in some cases, no availability.

With CO, sometimes you can't buy an F seat EWR-LAX/SFO unless you plan 2+ weeks out.

Remember also that people who buy high fares often do so partly for the flexibility. That means there needs to be some available C space for changes.

While I know CO likes to run optimally, but optimally can backfire here, because that premium passenger who paid top dollar so he can fly earlier if needed is not going to be happy when all the earlier flights are full up in C. The fancy AVOD and enhanced E+ is not gonna cut it.



True. But now they do not have the ability to upgrade to F.


And for those who do not qualify for E+, now they have to pay up or get less legroom. I would have expected that with CO's egalitarian mindset, they would have liked the E+ for all concept on this route.


Yes.

golfingboy

IMO, that is not a "loophole", it is explicitly permissible by the program rules and they encourage you to take this routing if you want to use your CR1s. Otherwise, if you really want the nonstop then buy W fare and use the SWU or pony up and pay the miles+copay.

For years, CO fliers who wanted free upgrades would fly EWR-LAX-HNL to snag EUA space. I don't see how this is different and they are fully aware of this option being available to frequent fliers.

It is a bit extreme to imply that UA/CO employees are not so bright and they are unaware of this so-called loophole. Heck, I even flew EWR-LAX-HNL-GUM-HKG rather than EWR-HKG for this very reason.

Having 38 premium seats on every PS flight is way too many seats for this route after DL expanded their flights and services on this route and VX's entry into the market. Trust me, most of the time the F cabin is not filled with revenue customers [paid+upgrades]. If you think they sell more than 30 seats [F+C] often then you will be surprised to know that is rather rare...

AA is not going to have that many premium seats for much longer either, just wait until they start retiring the 762s.

kb1992

Wah.

That would be a heck of MR if EUAs all clear...

Maybe I should try to add BOS-EWR segment.

How much did you pay? Is the fare cheap

Is CR-1 allowed in this? From EWR all the way to HNL or maybe GUM?

golfingboy

If that is the case, then they will start holding back a couple of C seats from upgrades until 30-45 minutes before departure for last minute walk ups and for those who wants to change their flights :-:

Y on the other hand ends up going overbooked on the PS routes quite frequently, which sparked a need to add some more seats in Y. Demand is definitely there for at least 100 Y seats and the demand is definitely not there for more than 30 premium seats.

Ok let's play with that logic... Say they decide to keep the F seats as it is, and replace the C seats with the new BF seats, do you think they will be thrilled to be upgraded to F?

The new seats definitely are going to be a hit and a very positive improvement for most paid F/C customers.

I paid $805 all in. EUA and CR1s are eligible on all flights except HNL-GUM, but now that route is going to be replaced with a domestic configuration 777 so that might change.

My friend got EWR-LAX-HNL/GUM-HKG. I wound up #1 on the list for EWR-LAX, but the agent blocked a full row for me in row 37 and there were only 2 seats open in Y on that flight... Yup both seats were in my row So, upon after taking off, I pulled out my Delta BusinessElite duvet blanket, feather pillow, and my kindle

channa

There's nothing to hold back if they're all sold. Remember that premium capacity is being reduced by 1/3 here.

golfingboy

FWIW, I did a quick simple search LAX/SFO-JFK for next Thursday and none of the flights are booked over 30 premium seats [that includes upgrades] and Y is overbooked on all flights.

channa

I thought the new number was 26 seats.

Also, premium travellers often don't have the luxury of booking a week out. Couple of days maybe, but not a week.

Take this Sunday for example. There are several flights showing very low C numbers -- C1 or C2.

golfingboy

Yup 26, what I am saying is that 38 seats is simply too much and the demand does not support it...

For Sunday, probably a result of upgrades clearing into the C cabin. UA often releases NC space under 1 week out on many PS routes in my experience, which is why I looked on Thursday...

sbm12

Yeah, capacity discipline by the airlines sucks.

Indeed, only CO tries to run "optimally." I don't even know what that means.

No doubt. But given that the new C hard product is better than the old F and the food was the same anyways I fail to see how that matters. :shrug:

kb1992

Let's add BOS-EWR and HKG-SIN to this mix, since we are talking about CO beloved domestic 737s, shall we?

BOS-EWR-LAX-HNL-GUM-HKG-SIN yields 25800 EQM. If you can get it for $805, that sounds an interesting MR.

But, how many hours will it take? 35 hours each way?

mduell

The CO764->UA772 GUM swap has resulted in:
16 more premium seats
89 more E+ seats
13 fewer E- seats

That's a net capacity increase of more than 90 seats.

dinoscool3

And you end up with crappy UA domestic seats.

danville 1K

The yin and yang here is some other route in the system lost an equivalent number of seats.

kb1992

Why is that?

Do you prefer CO regular Y seats with less legroom (vs. UA E+)?

channa

CO likes to push things. You know what I mean.

You need to have more capacity than required to accommodate for the unknowns of the business. A paid C customer who spent $10,000 for SYD-SFO-JFK misconnecting in SFO is not going to be happy sitting in Y because there weren't enough premium seats because of CO's "capacity discipline."

CO likes to have things setup for the optimal world -- nobody changes flights, nobody misconnects, there are no strong headwinds, etc. In the perfect world, these CO-esque ideas are fine and make sense. The reality of the business is that it's not a perfect world, and reducing premium cabin capacity to the point where it can sell out a week or two out (which is sometimes the case on CO), is going to cause them problems.