Originally posted by chornedsnorkack
If Y class does not create profits and club and first loads pay for the flight then the obvious things to do would be
a) just sell no Y tickets and thereby save fuel
b) then rip out all the Y seats and let your club and first passengers play tennis or have a dance floor or something such there - this way they benefit more than just from their seats
c) give more comfortable accommodation inside the same space, like scatter real full-length mattresses or double beds all across the rear cabin for your club and first passengers
d) save the costs of hauling around the weight and drag of a big airframe, and have a moderate-sized airframe with spacious interior and no Y seats whatever.
It seems that Maxjet and Eos are currently trying d).
Maxjet is trying a variant of (d) which also involves dropping fares very considerably compared to normal C class fares. I think the jury is still out on the prospects for long-term success of these two. However a purer example of (d) is Privatair, now operating C-class-only transatlantic services for Lufthansa, Swiss and KLM (e.g. Amsterdam-Houston in a 737!). On routes with good business loads but proportionally little economy demand, they fly an all-business-class configured A319 or 737/BBJ on behalf of the major carrier. Seems to work well for all concerned. But of course only a relative handful of routes fall into that category.