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But the segment has an outsized impact on revenue. Say a business class ticket for a transatlantic flight is 5x an economy and a first class ticket is 10x an e
by startupdiscuss 9y ago
But the segment has an outsized impact on revenue.
Say a business class ticket for a transatlantic flight is 5x an economy and a first class ticket is 10x an economy.
And the plane, of course, is largely fixed costs.
- TremendousJudge 9y agoThe business seats on a plane make more money than the economy seats. However, there aren't lines where you can fill a whole plane of business: economy is there mostly to fill up space
- namdnay 9y agoThere are some, but they're very rare. One example is the BA shuttle between London City and New York - only business. I believe there is a French airline doing a "cheap business" Paris-New York as well.
- mpweiher 9y agoAlso the new Boom supersonic jet is intended to be all business class seats (around 60, IIRC).
- ghaff 9y agoI'm not holding my breath for any of these supersonic jet projects to come to market. But, if they do, I expect the nominally "business" or "first" class seating will be more like domestic business today than typical international business class--as was the case with the Concorde.
- markonen 9y agoThat’s Boom’s business plan explicitly. Cut down the flight time to a couple of hours and you don’t need to offer a bed, making the per seat cost comparable.
- dillondoyle 9y agoLa Compagnie! I really like them the couple times I've flown. For the price it's really great value. Worst part is the NYC airpot 'lounge' Not the fanciest interior/seat but the food and service were great when I've flown.
- gsnedders 9y ago> One example is the BA shuttle between London City and New York - only business. I believe there is a French airline doing a "cheap business" Paris-New York as well. Both are done by BA, and both are stopping.
- isostatic 9y agoQatar operate a small business only A319 from Doha to London once a day, or did when I took it two years ago. I preferred the a350 and 787 flights which are 1-2-1 rather than 2-2, but for a 7 hour day flight it wasnt too bad. It was half empty though, not a great use of a Heathrow slot.
- jsjohnst 9y agoSingapore Airlines used to have an all business flight to NYC, but it’s been phased out.
- smachiz 9y agoIt's coming back in 2018 with a A350-900 ULR with only Business and Premium Economy, no Economy seats.
- yeukhon 9y agoI agree it is a fixed cost, but the initial cost is expensive by itself before we consider the cost for maintenance. Also 5x for economy is really expensive, I highly doubt that many customers would want this 380 experience for 5x of econ. Airbus 380 is ideal for long distance, then 5*800 from NY to Asia would be too damn expensive: then why not first-class on non-380?
- namdnay 9y agoI think you misunderstood the parent. They are saying that business is 5x economy, not the A380.
- jsjohnst 9y agoThat’s part of the reason US based airlines don’t fly to most gulf region airports anymore. 1) they could essentially justify a lightly loaded economy section due to Business / First passengers (I’ve done several cheap mileage runs before where I had multiple rows to myself in economy). When those $$$$ passengers switched to the nicer Emirates/Etihad/etc flights, they lost that marginal advantage. 2) on top of #1, another major factor is that Etihad/Emirates/etc are heavily subsidized by their national governments. Due to this, the slot fees were much cheaper for them than US based airlines further reducing any money to be made on those segments by US based airlines. The end result of the above is that now you have to use an alliance partner + connection to get from US to the Middle East (or fly a MENA based airline) where as before you could choose from dozens of directs.