Standard vs Business/First Class

[catspaw27]

I have been giving thought to running a comparison of how much money you actually make using upper-level seating or not at all.  It seems to me there is no penalty for a carrier who doesn't offer Business or First Class seating.

Feedback on this from some veterans?

[Unbornio]

Business class is your money maker, economy is okay. First is awesome if you got demand.

If there is demand for business, add some seats, you'll see profits shoot up.

First class, only do it if it's more than 5 pax demand. I don't even use this class (since there's no demand).

[Sigma]

Depends on how the configuration of the plane and what you give up in Y seats by adding C seats, as to whether or not it's worth it.  But it almost always is.

On 737-200Advs for example, you can go with 114Y or 108Y/5C.  That's a net of only losing 1 seat.  And 5 of those seats are now paying the same far as 12Y seats.  So, in effect you are actually flying 120Y.

I had a long post I sent someone in a PM running through the math, but I didn't save it in my Outbox to myself.  But, running through the math, with what it costs to convert the plane from 114Y to 108Y/5C, the conversion pays for itself in just 10 weeks provided you can get the seats at about 80% full.  After a mere 3 months it's all gravy from there on out.

In some configurations though you give up a lot more seats.  So you've got to find the right balance on the plane that nets you the most pax at the highest total revenue for your plane.  If you've got to give up 10 Y seats to gain 5 C seats, it starts to make less sense to do it (unless you're shooting to steal unfilled C demand and let everyone else fight over the Y which can be very profitable particularly early in a game).

[virtual]

Hello,

U have to think of this configuation too on flights of less than 1000 nm, or if you wanna dump prices on Y class :

HD Y seats / standard C

I use this a lot, and it works great, u don t loose any Y seats, and u get cash cows C

On a road with big demands it is very very profitable, and u can lower the price of he Y class by 15% it will fill, no matter how many compitetitors are in