Floyd

They want a six pack and switches with white Jimmy hats.

Probe

James;
Brand X airline has been tried many times. You and me just called it Brand X because they were in business for such a short time, that nobody remembers their names.

I value comfort, and will pay for it. I think true Premium Economy is the way to go, and so do a lot of airlines. I read Lufthansa CEO claim it was their most profitable cabin. I think American is starting to try it now. 20 inch wide seat, and extra legroom.

Human beings are not a very efficient way to package meat into an airplane. We take a certain amount of space, and we need aisles to enter and exit. The greater the ratio of seats/aisle, the smaller and lighter the airplane can be. Airlines don't make money flying aisles around, only seats with revenue paying bodies in them.

FWIW i really liked our old lie flat business seats. They took up the floor space of about 4 coach seats, and they sold them for 4-7 times what a coach ticket sold for. A huge percentage of them were sold to revenue passengers. I would usually get 1st class before business when I was non-reving. I think the new Polaris is a disaster. They take up a bunch more space ( I haven't measured it, I would guess 6 or 7 coach seats), and we don't sell the seats for any more of a premium than we did the lie flat business seat. They might be comfortable, but we are giving away space that our passengers aren't paying anything more for.

My opinion.

oldmako

..."cut out"

C11DCA

If you were in first class as a non rev then those seats were given away for nothing to, or they were empty.

Polaris is keeping up with the modern standard of all aisle access, and no first class.

Zenofzin

We already offer economy plus seats for extra legroom, at extra cost. There always open that's the seat I get when I commute. People want cheap as Hell then they want to birch about how much better the foreign airlines are. I had a guy at a party tell me how great The Asian carriers are, then he told me flies Delta economy because it's cheaper.

Aquaticus

If we don't offer aisle access lay flat seats the real money passengers will go fly someone else that does. There will always be better first class products out there with better service. The elderly woman flying HKG for the past 20 years isn't going to offer the same service as an Asian carrier that age discriminates. We are marketing a consistently good product that is mid range luxury with a price to match that might actually be sold. They can offer showers and bars and massages but that won't be us. Polaris isn't perfect but it isn't meant to be. We can't charge full fare first when we have upgrades sitting next to them abusing the flight attendants like it is Red Lobster. I sat next to an upgrade who requested the full turn down blanket service from the flight attendant while she was serving meals to full fare passengers. He made a fool of himself the whole flight with odd demands. If I was a full fare first passenger I would be embarrassed to be seen with some of our upgrades. I think they are trying to sell out the cabin of better than our previous business but below a true first class product.

Probe

Yep, I agree. The 1st class pods went out of economic use by the late 90's. It was non-rev class and upgrade class for 10-15 years. The people that used to pay 10k for a pod started flying Netjets.

But Polaris is almost as space inefficient as the pods. Not quite as bad, but halfway there compared to the old lie class business. Checking ticket prices on a dozen routes, we aren't getting any more money for Polaris than we did for the lie flat business.

tkt96

The old 2 class 767-300 layout: 30 BF lie flat seats/184 coach
Polaris 2 class 767-300 layout: 30 Polaris seats/184 coach

Polaris is not space inefficient vs the old lie flat seat. But it is a much better product.

ReadyRsv

This is correct. The real genius of Polaris is the cabin density stays while creating direct aisle access for 100% of the customers. Mark your calendars, this may be the one time an airline came up with a novel business practice that makes more money than before without cutting costs while attracting new customers. Now we need to get it on every WB stat!

Probe

I am not sure how they did that as on a 777 they went form 8 across in BF to 6 across in Polaris. Maybe slimline seats in coach?