Nick Laflamme wrote: > At 07:37 PM 5/3/2002 -0700, Mark Greenwood wrote: > >>How would doing away with FC adversely affect yield? Right now you have >>someone who has paid the lowest fare possible occupying a high yield seat. >> > > You're kidding, right? They people who fly the most often fly on > unrestricted tickets or on very short notice. They may have a 5% corporate > discount worked out by their employer (I did when I was with Nortel), but > that's 5% off a very high fare, not 5% off what the cheapest fare on the > plane is! Absolutely. Most airlines get a lot of yield from F and J class seats. Economy gets them to break even or a little over but F and J are pure cream. That's a very general statement of course and can vary greatly from flight to flight depending on whether it's a business or leisure market but J especially can be very lucrative. Moving on to upgrades, I don't know how it's done in the US but in OZ, you will almost never get a heavily discounted fare upgraded to Business. If any upgrades are done, they're given to those last minute business traffic pax who usually pay full fare for their economy seat or to FF and loyalty club members who are riding down the back that day. You'll only get discounted fares upgraded if the flight is empty, in which case yields are shot to hell on that flight anyway. Grant SYD QF