AFA was told last week that the 3 new 757's will be configured with 8 "Premium" seats and 180 coach seats.
There will be no Envoy class or service on these aircraft. The "Premium" seat product will be just that...a bigger seat with no additional service. AFA was told this decision is driven by competition.
Those 8 people up front get a slightly bigger seat and get the SAME SERVICE as in the back? So now we are going to have 2 levels of product to Europe. BAD BAD move in my view.
This is exactly as I understand it from what I have read. What you view as being a bad move is pretty much a smart business decision. Here is the problem with adding Envoy type seats to the Transatlantic 757's:
We are getting 3 "new" airplanes that will be dedicated to the TA flights. We will either upgrade and recertify 2-3 airplanes as ETOPS that are currently in the fleet or there are additional B757's coming from somewhere. You have to have a back up airplane for MTC checks and Unsked MTC items. Just because we fly one route 4 days a week isn't going to cover the MTC needs of the airplanes.
So...we currently have 31 B757's on the east side. We are adding 3 more. If we reconfigure the 3 ETOPS airplanes with Envoy type seats and product, we will remove additional coach seats - diluting revenue - for a product that we rarely, if ever, sell. Now, you will need to have a fleet standardization with the B757 fleet. If you configure those 5-6 airplanes as 16/168 you either create a sub fleet in a very small fleet type, or you reconfigure all of the 757's to the standard 16/168 configuration. Reconfiguring an entire fleet of airplanes, for three routes, with seats that you generally don't sell at the list price, doesn't make a lot of sense.
Other carriers have been successful with their programs, many of which offer a true 3 class service on many of their routes to Europe. If they were not successful in their launch of this type of service, I am sure it would have been pulled and changed. There is no reason to think our service will not be as successful. I would be more upset if they were trying to sell the 8 seats as J - Enjoy Seats - and watering down the product that we do offer.
I am sure that if our plan is to go after a certain companies business, we will set up a marketing deal with them to provide the enhanced coach seats when available.
So the bottm line becomes, is it worth spending the money on an envoy type seat on 34 airplanes when you won't really recoup the costs with tickets sold at the premium fare? I don't think so. I think that the way they are handleing this is the best that we can do with the resoucres we have available.
:unsure:
