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by ghaff 3811 days ago
A typical domestic flight has very few upgrade seats (e.g. on a 757). As one of those "frequent flier" business travelers on United (Gold--50K mile/yr status), I hardly ever get upgraded.

>would 'only' cost them 33% of seat capacity

So, on today's planes, they'd have to increase fares accordingly given that utilization on most flights is pretty high. I get your point. But the market dynamics are more or less "lowest price" vs. business class is OK.
1 comments
rconti 3811 days ago
Right, I am more than willing to pay a premium price for a better service, but we're talking 50%, not 500%. I believe the price they're trying to charge is simply an order of magnitude out of whack with reality.

I suspect there are 2 factors at play here. For one, serving the lowest common denominator and competing on price is easier. It's easier to create metrics around, and by handling volume, it's easier to fill planes. It would be harder to provide a premium service airline with all more-expensive seats, because likely they'd end up with unexpectedly low utilization or unexpectedly high demand at various times, based on seasonality, and it might be harder to fill all of the seats as efficiently. Not to mention route planning and so on.

The other factor is probably just a bit of a herd mentality where nobody wants to go out on a limb and try something different for fear of spectacular failure. We know the existing system works, even if it doesn't work well.

I know United has Premium Service, but they don't even make it easy to purchase. They mention that it's on EWR-LAX and EWR-SFO routes, but then tout the level of "available" service in different classes -- 1st, and economy plus. They imply there's ALSO regular economy seating, and don't explain what (if anything) is better in regular economy. They don't discuss whether Economy plus is better than economy plus on other planes/routes. They also don't seem to provide any way of booking it -- I looked several times on their website, and perhaps I just need to know which flights are considered "PS" flights, and then figure out if it costs more or the same?

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ghaff 3810 days ago
>It would be harder to provide a premium service airline with all more-expensive seats

It's been tried and, by and large, it doesn't work because too many people just buy on price. There are some minor exceptions--e.g. British Airways all-business London City to New York route but that's obviously a pretty special case.

Economy Plus is just more legroom. It may include priority boarding as well. I believe it primarily exists as a perk for frequent flyers (which I am). I've been told that, otherwise, you may not be able to book it until some number of days before your flight.

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