Originally Posted by
ExXB
American Airlines used to offer more legroom in economy several years ago. They found that given the choice, people will buy a ticket at a lower price on a competing airline rather than pay a little bit more for more legroom.
Ah, I remember this. And the myth about its disappearance.
The scheme was American Airlines MRTC - More Room Through Coach. Yes, they removed a couple of seat rows and repitched the remainder to give everyone a couple more inches. There was an extensive supporting campaign. In all truth it didn't seem to have an impact on AA fares.
Then it was withdrawn, along with all sorts of justifications about how nobody took the extra room into account.
That was a complete fabrication. I can tell you it was the No 1 topic of conversation between seatmates for the several years that it was in force. US travellers in particular really picked up on the concept and said how they liked the better feeling.
However, at HQ this was all ignored by beancounters, who have the bizarre idea that if you are getting say 80% load factors (sounds reasonable) then in a 300 seat aircraft you will sell 240 seats, but if it now has 320 seats you will sell 256 instead. In my experience no AA flight during this time approached 100% full, nor did one when they stuck the extra seats back in (actually they put more back in than they initially took out). The fares didn't noticeably change relative to the competition either.
But then this was all come up with by US airline Yield Management analysts, who cheerfully manage to actually sell about 10% of the First Class seats at the published fare, and then let the rest go to free upgrades of Y passengers who happen to have done a lot of flying - who are of course exactly your target market for paid F seats in the first place, but travellers now realise they don't need to do so. In fact on less well loaded US flights, F now has a downside, there can be plenty of space back in the Y cabin with only two or even one passengers per seat bank, which lets you spread out, while up front in F every seat is taken and those odd F passengers who actually paid the big fare find they are surrounded by those who just Yadda Yadda Yadda relentlessly about how they "scored" another upgrade on a Y fare.