But how much do those first class passengers subsidize the others? I suspect now airfares will go even higher.
:: All first class is about food and a bigger seat ::
And, at some point, folks will realize that it’s the better food that gives them the bigger seat!
When I lived in Japan and got to fly business class on multiple Asian airlines, Thai, All Nippon, Cathay Pacific, Singapore etc., any one of them provided far better business class service than first class on any crappy airline like American.
If a destination requires getting on a flying cattle car, I ain’t going. Period.
FC generates most of the profits. Other airlines have done this, and ended up restoring FC after a while. AA is not a world-class airline, though, so I guess they don’t care.
Stands to reason with the past year’s increase in air fares, that airlines can, based on fare prices, attract more business class ticket buyers from the former 1st class ticket buyers. The main agenda of air fares is to as much as possible fill the plane. The more the plane is filled, the greater the net profit and net revenue benefit against all the fixed costs for a flight regardless of how many passenegers it has. I think the net benefit will be, as I said, a shift of willing buyers from 1st class to business class - not more net buyers merely due to an expanded business class.
People aren’t passengers anymore.
They’re cargo.
No matter which class they sit in.
It’s really the business travelers that drive this, because clients and companies are more willing to pony-up for business class than they are for the perceived luxury of first class.
I would imagine most first class seats are not even purchased—they are often upgraded frequent fliers.
Cutting out the rows, and adding Business Class would simply increase the percentage of paid butts in the seats.
I’m pretty much indifferent to where I sit on an airplane unless I’m flying across an ocean. Then it IS nice to be able to stretch out and sleep. If the company is paying for it. I wouldn’t pay for business or first class myself, and I’d save my miles for other trips.
Food? Don’t really care. A bigger screen to watch movies? On a scale of one to ten, maybe a two. More room to store carryon luggage? I figured out how to pack a long time ago, and any trinkets I’m bringing home have to fit in the existing luggage.
So the way I read this American Airlines is phasing out first class service but maintaining First Class prices.
I don’t fly any airline as I do not like being molested at the airport.
I liked having a first class option. This kind of sucks.
I was bumped to a first class seat on a flight to Chicago once.
Was the only time in my life that I was depressed that the plane landed...
Most people in first class are business travelers that fly a lot. They use airline points to upgrade. I bet AA eliminates 1st class on most domestic flights just because it doesn’t generate any revenue in the first place.
Andrew Tate got banned from social media not for any accusations of misogyny but for calling out the sick hypocrisy that during the entire COVID-1984 lockdowns, private jet passengers were allowed to fly into countries without proof of the Jim Jones Jab that the same countries demanded of the everyone else. (He's on video saying it was going to get him canceled and sure enough, it did).
On overseas flights your seat converts to a bed
But if you get rid of First Class, Business Class becomes first class, no?
This is like those coffee places that have only medium and large cups.
Or the cereal boxes that come in large and family sizes.
Uh, doesn’t that make the medium or the large the small?
First class today (on US airlines) is not even as nice as peasant class was in the 70s. I have enough status to fly first more often than not, and it is fun to sneer at the peasants as they shamble to the back of the plane, but if I had to pay for it for domestic flights I wouldn’t do it. However, for flights across the ocean, business class is fantabulous, mostly just for the reclining seats alone. I generally can’t sleep on planes, but with a seat that can go close to horizontal, I sleep like a baby. My work automatically upgrades any flight over 8 hours, and the first time I did business, was a flight from DFW to Doha, Qatar. I remember dozing off somewhere between Dallas and DC and when I next opened my eyes I was looking down upon the Sahara desert. Never before had I slept on a plane like that. Now I am spoilt, and will never do a long flight in economy again. Sometimes you can get deals, in fact last night, I got a wild hair and booked a business class flight from Reno to Tahiti for 1100 bucks