Article: The Most Profitable Seats on the Plane Are Not What You Think

[AFF Editor]

Canonical URL

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/premium-economy-profitability/

The Most Profitable Seats on the Plane: Not What You Think is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

The Most Profitable Seats on the Plane: Not What You Think

There's a common misconception that airlines make the most profit from Business and First Class seats. Nowadays, the best earner is Premium Economy.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[OZDUCK]

I was sure that i had seen mention of a Premium Economy seat on some QR flights and found the article I was thinking about. QR does actually offer a Comfort+ seat but it is only on those few aircraft it snaffled up from CX and Virgin Australia. Obviously these are 'special' aircraft and does, to me at least, support your argument that QR should embrace the PE option.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/qatar-airways-premium-economy#:~:text=Some%20Qatar%20Airways%20flights%20offer%20the%20comfort%20of%20premium%20economy%20seating.&text=While%20Qatar%20Airways%20has%20new,this%20year%2C%20Riyadh%20Air).

 

[eastwest101]

A pretty good write up of the state of affairs with PE seating and where it is most common and why. And I think this mostly is all a subject that is most applicable in med to long haul international flights.

Matt - I think your point about the increasing F and J fares due to their large footprint and higher cost per unit to supply and serve, along with the decrease of Y class seat pitch and width in the inevitable race to the bottom makes it clear that as airlines attempt to make flying Y class long haul so unbearable that people pay to escape the Y cabin is a big part of this story.

The other part maybe not touched upon, is changes and dynamics of corporate and/or government travel policies? Obviously every corporation and government is different but I would love to see if various policies along the lines of "No J class travel ever permitted" or "J class only for Executive level for a duration of > 6-8 hours", all travel must be in Economy" etc would be worth examining more closely, although I would imagine that getting real data about this would be very difficult.

One more thing that might be plausible would be a demographic story, an ageing population doing more long haul travel overseas than previous generations but still having to contain itself to some sensible budget while refusing to subject themselves to standard Y seating might be a growing trend in some wealthier nations (and maybe growing middle and upper classes in the developing world?). A skewed age profile of PE pax compared to J F or Y class passenger lists would confirm this but I bet the airline revenue management people can't even get this sort of granular data yet.....