Just my very humble contribution...
Throughout a long career in business, I have observed a significant decline in the amount of business travel being conducted by multinationals. In the 70's, and 80's, all of my travel was in J, with a couple of F's when the trips were time critical. In the 90's, commuting between Southern Africa, Europe and the Mid-West and California over several years. Eventually it became J for over 6 hour trips only, and the rest in economy.
Video conferencing was introduced and after a slow start, became more acceptable and the family enjoyed more of my presence for longer.
Consequently it seems to me that the overall pool of business class punters must be getting considerably smaller. (Unless being compensated for, by the Pacific Rim economies).
If ULH is considered to be a premium product, will enough revenue be available from the pool to make this sector sustainable in the longer term? or is OVERALL airline profitability looking for ever more like a LoCo model.. I'm not talking about a few high rollers because they always have the option of private jets, or "business only" configurations. I suspect that the answer is "not long term sustainable" which would imply that ULH has limited life. Then A380 will become more viable.
IG
Last edited by ImageGear; 15th Oct 2018 at 12:26.
Reason: Oops we passed...interesting