Came back 1st Class on the A180 from JFK this week.
1st had 9 of its 14 seats filled (albeit 1 was me on SBY), but J had ALL of its 76 seats filled (I guess that would have funded the flight alone?). I did venture downstairs for a gloat at the steerage pax and guess there were about 60-80 empty seats out of the 390 odd.
So while not full, a pretty respectable load none the less, however, no way of telling how many were upgrades or what the yield is.......
As someone has said already, its swings and roundabouts, while the load may be light on the outbound sector, it may well be full coming back. So in essence, its pointless looking at the load on any given single sector as its completely irrelevant! Say what you like about EK, but one thing they seem to be VERY good at is revenue management and commercial decision making, its the 'man management' that is lacking here!!
As a point of interest, I must say that I am very impressed with the machine from a pax point of view. Incredibly quiet (almost silent in-fact), and the shower was great----- I even considered having a me-some (a meeting with Palmela Handerson), but thought better of it as people have been sacked for less!!
Cheers