FL370

I'm a UA GS who is dabbling with AS given UA's pathetic long haul business product and domestic first catering. I generally only fly on paid first tickets domestically and business or first fares internationally. I very much value flexibility as my plans change often and frequently at the last minute. UA just about always holds 1-2 seats in domestic F until boarding. This means that if you are in paid first (or need a new paid first ticket), you can generally find room on earlier/later flights. I've found the exact opposite to be the case on AS over the past year. Often 24-48 hours out every single flight in a given market is completely sold out in first. My hunch is AS revenue management simply prioritizes clearing upgrades far in advance. Is this common or is my experience not representative of the norm?

anteater

AS used to regularly hold J1-2 until close in to boarding, but I haven�t seen that behavior in a long time. Once the upgrade professor runs within T-24, it will clear the upgrade list until J0.

dayone

Also my experience. Any remaining F are released by T-4.

eponymous_coward

AS is an LCC (you can see them brag about it in their investor presentations). They would rather fill the Y and F cabins as best they can and get something than sell �it�s a million dollar glass of lemonade, we only need to sell one� F and not realize that revenue, just in the hopes that you want to last minute change into that other million dollar glass of lemonade and someone else buys the one you left behind. Frankly SEA isn�t SFO, CHI, WAS or NYC in terms of F demand especially on an LCC that isn�t going to be as �wired� into corporate travel departments as UA is. Part of being an LCC is not letting inventory spoil just so they can have it on hand for a lot of indecisive travelers who won�t commit until the last minute. It�s not their market niche like it might be for UA.

FL370

I�m not talking about million dollar glasses of lemonade. I�m talking about $400 o/w tickets on the west coast and $800 transcons. I get clearing out J in order to open up Y space, but I�m seeing J0, Y9 often 24 hours out. What harm is caused to upgrades doing it 4 hours before the flight to accommodate J sales or J customers that need to change flights due to irrops or their personal schedule changes? I�d argue this behavior is causing AS to lose significant money on the table.

As an example, I had a recent PHX AS flight that was delayed, booked in C class. No other AS flights with J for 12+ hours. I cancelled and booked on Delta. This can�t possibly be a savvy situation for any carrier to put a loyal paid J traveler in, LCC or otherwise.

TalkingPoint

It annoys me that they do this as well. You don�t even need to fill up J to open space in Y. Just allow Y to oversell up to as many seats as you have unsold in J and then have the gate process upgrades instead of rely on the faulty professor.

eponymous_coward

Oh, you're assuming the AS upgrade processor works well enough that they can do things like that. No, not so much. The cost of fixing it is again, something endemic to an LCC where "no, it's not worh the cash to get past our ancient, stone knives and bearskins SABRE implementation" is put down the beancounter priority list behind other stuff.

Also, again, I think you overestimate last minute F demand in AS's primary hub, SEA, which tends to be how they orient their operations. SFO is not their primary hub, and their markets out of SFO are more oriented towards leisure (read: not many people are deciding they need to change to the HNL, PSP or PVR flight 4 hours later the same way UA customers are deciding on ORD/EWR/DEN).

Right, because gate agents aren't doing other things and risking D0 problems (on time departure) isn't a big deal to an LCC where D0 gets prioritized over making sure that you can sell last minute F.

By all means feel free to send in those cards and letters to AS management and vote with your dollars but none of this is remotely new.

Frankly, I do think AS is a bad choice as a primary airline for someone who flies paid F out of SFO, highly values maximum flexibility with their plans and swiveling on a dime (read: you need maximum frequency, which you won't get unless you're flying to SEA/PDX), and thus needs an IROPS free experience. UA is the better choice as the dominant carrier out of SFO (AS routinely gets hosed by ATC holds and then things like this happen: SFO Flight Moved to SJC). I don't think they're likely to fix things that have been going on for decades.

NoLaGent

Perfectly said above. I also agree w/UA as the answer, and that used to be me. The older I get and the more flexibility I have, the more I prefer AS.

Plus, UA has its own share of problems, so nothing is perfect, but for flexibility and schedule plus last minute front cabin availability, there is no contest here.

Eastbay1K

I do also expect that AS sells out the F cabin more frequently than the others, especially with F cabins of 12 and 16. As a practical matter, from SFO/OAK, other than a very few markets, the frequency issue (i.e., trying to hop on an earlier flight or wanting a slightly later flight) is rarely (and unfortunately) an available option. And for those markets, sitting in the back for an hour or a bit more isn't that big of a deal. For anything longer, yup, AS isn't probably a good choice.

FL370

Agreed at SFO UA is the better choice. But at AS�s primary hub this dynamic still exists and it has plenty of business travelers in SEA from what I can tell.

sfozrhfco

SFO excluding UA is a very divided market with no other carrier having anything close to a comprehensive network. Thus it becomes largely dependent on your travel patterns. For JFK/BOS/FLL B6�s Mint is the only one I pay for but obviously if you are primarily going to MSP/DTW/ATL/DEN/DFW/IAH/MIA/ORD and countless other smaller cities then you are looking at the US3. Internationally there are a ton of non US airlines to choose from depending on your destination. If you are looking for a single airline that competes with UAs network and has first class, that carrier unfortunately does not exist. This is how UA has survived at SFO despite arguably having at least a 15 year run in the 90s and 00s of being the carrier of last resort.

Eastbay1K

Exactly why I never had an "I'm never flying United again" tantrum, notwithstanding the fact that in the 20-something years since I became a UA MM, I've only added about 200k total to the lifetime miles. It's there when I need it, and thank goodness I often don't!

eponymous_coward

Business travelers are pretty often not in paid F out of SEA as you are (by your description of your travel patterns). The local culture is pretty strong of "you can tough it out in Y for a few hours, suck it up, that's all of our profits and potential stock gains being spent on those flights" (FWIW Amazon and most tech companies aren't very different than Microsoft here, anything above Y is reserved for LONG flights, SFO-BLR not SFO-SEA or even SEA-WAS). While people on business travel with status will get the upgrade, the way the upgrade system works for AS means your odds of keeping the upgrade if you change flights isn't great. In my experience same day changing on AS is fine... but you're quite likely to end up in Y unless you have a LOT of elite status (and are a little lucky). And frankly on a two to three hour flight being in Y is not a big deal if it gets me home when I want to go home (I've given up more AS F seats and Sham Payne™ over the years than I can count).

I know for my Fortune 500 company I'd be losing my job if I started paying for F on my work flights using the corporate card. Heck, I'm not even allowed to buy EarlyBird on WN on the corporate card.

Legend717

It seems your mind was made up before you posed the question.
Additionally, your subject line question is very broad "Is AS a bad choice for paid first travellers?" Versus your actual question, "Is AS a bad choice if I want to change tickets on already full planes within 48 hours of departure from select airports that aren't SEATAC?"

I'm not an AS apologist; I left UA to fly AS, and don't need the agreement of others to validate my decision (not that you do, either).
However, load factors in the past couple years have been shockingly high across many carriers, which complicates same day change benefits for people in all classes of travel.

Regarding whether AS is a bad airline for First, I think the broader answer is that in many ways, they're better than UA. But for international, you'd better like OneWorld partners and Singapore, versus being able to fly UA in-house and earn lifetime status miles.

Eastbay1K

Keeping the upgrade is one thing. Keeping a paid F seat is another. Finding last minute space on AS isn't very likely. AS found me last minute space.on UA during its own IROPS and almost did another time (the space was there but my flight hadn't yet canceled during the MAX debacle). vice versa would have never occurred.