Loadings from BNE to LAX with QF

[MarcB]

Hi all - just wondering if anyone has recently flown BNELAX on QF15. Interested to know what the loadings have been like in whY in particular. Unfortunately E/F is not showing many seat maps (unavailable), CMT appears to be down (not returning bookings only passengers), and availability is up and down a lot on a daily basis (e.g. 0 back to 9 back to 0 back to 9).

Have an upcoming flight (Friday 17/07) and want to know whether the cabin might be busy to determine whether to leave my UG request in place. Seems fairly pointless to UG if we have spare seats and can spread out. Qantas seat selection currently shows spare seat in first row of economy (row 26) we're in row 27 and we have a spare seat next to us. Interestingly, these seats were blocked yesterday but became available today.

Also, any anecdotal comments on aircraft that have recently flown this route? I know there was some disucssion they were using 2 class in 3 class configuration.

M

 

[serfty]

did you try seatcounter?

 

[MarcB]

Yeah - shows the same availability as E/F. Was more interested to see what people had actually observed. It is very hard to trust the availability at the moment with it changing (quite significantly) on a daily basis. From what I can observe though, looks like most of the QF15 flights on either side of mine are all showing lots of availability - so I guess they are probably fairly empty. Not sure what the strategy was of zeroing out availability until this week and then increasing back to 9 - I guess they didn't want to sell too many cheap seats!

 

[serfty]

... and availability is up and down a lot on a daily basis (e.g. 0 back to 9 back to 0 back to 9). ...

This tells me that the flight may be quite sold in WHY but very undersold in Y+ and J; Yield Management are trying to garner as much revenue as possible even if it means effectively selling a good seat for a cheap price.

Anyway, three days before the flight: J9 C9 D9 I9 W9 T9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 Q9 O9 X8 E2

Note this Y+ on this flight is using the 14 downstairs sky-beds in rows 23 & 24. So those travelling in Y+ will get Sky-beds with premium(J "light") service.

Have you considered requesting a premium economy upgrade for 45K points rather than business for 72K points? Or are you in an ineligible fare class and submitted your request during the promotion that finished June 2nd.

 

[MarcB]

Yeah - I considered that as an option as well. This was the availability on 22nd June:

J9 C9 D9 I9 W9 T9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N9 QC OC XC E0

Then again on 26 June

J9 C9 D9 I9 W9 T9 B9 H9 K9 M8 L0 V1 SC NC QC OC XC E0

Last week M went as low as 2 and all others below were showing 0.

Now, as you posted, all basically back to 9 - with award available too!

We do have UG requests in for premium economy - and at 90k pts for 2 people in skybeds, maybe I should just leave them in place and just enjoy the ride if it eventuates!

 

[MarcB]

CMT just came back up - all seats in whY are showing as "occupied" for both my BNELAX and LAXJFK. Strangely, I can still see availability to change seats on QF seat selection - more than I could 24 hours ago. As I can now select the first rows in economy on both flights, I'm guessing that there are not a lot of status PAX on my flight - I am only Gold and generally first row has not been available...

 

[serfty]

This change to the seat map is normal - Amadeus' view of the seat map has gone into a "pre-flight" mode that Qantas send it 3 to 5 days before a flight. It generally shows as most seats being allocated (if not then the aircraft is VERY lightly loaded).

I believe from your data that this flight is quite full in WHY.

This generally means that as an SG:

1. your points upgrades are basically a shoo-in.
2. You also have a good chance at an op-up.

If I was in your shoes I'd stick with the (1) Y+ upgrade - who knows, you may be further op-upped to "J" - then you'll get PJ's and amenity kits (which would almost be the only difference).

 

[MarcB]

Thanks for the info serfty. I think you are right - the opportunity to sit in a skybed for 45k does not come along often...especially when you have paid $1200 return for a trip to NYC. The possibility of a further op-up is tempting too! I've heard of people missing out on the upgrade they requested and getting op-up'd anyway...so here's hoping! As an added bonus, looking at the loadings on the LAXNYC, we may get an op-up on that leg. We didn't put in a request for that flight because we ended up with Y+ seats (39A&B) by default due to cabin reconfiguration - but it's looking pretty full. 1 in most whY classes!

 

[MarcB]

In case anyone is interested, here's a look at the seat maps for QF015 and QF107 this Friday 17/07. Based on my SG, looks like I can select any of the remaining seats in the cabin.

 

[mushypeas]

are you sure this flight has y+ ?? i'm booked on both qf15 & qf107 bne>lax>jfk on 13/10 and CMT claims its only first/business & economy?

when i booked my flights i called qantas and they allocated me 35h&j for qf15 and 70a/b for qf107

 

[Nutcase]

Im on QF 107 on August 5. Im Platinum and have booked an economy seat and last week was able to choose at Premium economy seat (still classified as economy from a service point of view I have heard). Can you guys have a look at the loading - I don't understand how it works - and let me know if there are many spare seats?

Also, what do you think my chances are of an upgrade to Business? I cant upgrade with points (my ticket was too cheap) but I am platinum.

Thoughts?

 

[serfty]

... and they allocated me 35h&j for qf15 and 70a/b for qf107

35 H&J are quite good economy seats on that flight. 35K is allocated as well. Y+ are the 14 row 23 & 24 Skybeds.

70A*B are stadanrd pair seats down the back. Not really an issue as luggage seems to take an hour to come out at JFK anyway .. :-|

 

[NM]

are you sure this flight has y+ ??

Qantas has recently been selling Y+ on QF15/16 even though they don't yet have any such configured 3-class (J, W, Y) aircraft. So they are seating Y+ (W, PE) in J seats.

 

[NM]

Hi all - just wondering if anyone has recently flown BNELAX on QF15. Interested to know what the loadings have been like in whY in particular.

Recent experience is really not going to provide you much of an indication. Loadings change day by day, based on many things. day of the week can be a big influence in loadings. Also note that Qld school holidays just finished, so any recent experience in the last 2 weeks has been influenced by the holiday period. There are way too many outside influences for recent experience to be of any real indication about loadings on a particular flight.

 

[serfty]

... There are way too many outside influences for recent experience to be of any real indication about loadings on a particular flight.

However, the pattern of fare bucket availability fluctuations has matched my experiences this year of heavily oversold WHY cabins with plenty of premium cabin spaces still "unsold" (at least for premium fares).

 

[serfty]

This tells me that the flight may be quite sold in WHY but very undersold in Y+ and J; Yield Management are trying to garner as much revenue as possible even if it means effectively selling a good seat for a cheap price....

More on this - Yield management see the flight as having a certain number of seats in varying configurations. Every seat is deemed sellable; for whatever they can get.

Obviously, the SkyBeds can generally be sold for a lot more than a WHY seat.

Now "All" the WHY seats appear to have been sold or more accuratly, the number of WHY fares sold is greater than or equal to the actual number of WHY seats on the flight. The sales of the premium seats are also light. As the time of the the flight approached, YM have decided Qantas would probably take more revenue on this flight by selling a further number of cheap economy fares rather than hoping for more high fare sales. In doing so they reduce the availability of the premium seating and ipso-facto, ' premium fares.

In the end there will be upgrades -firstly those who have requested QFF points upgrades (Y/M have probably already factored these in) and secondly, the Operational upgrades. Generally the determination of who gets upgraded is based on the percieved value of eachpassenger/party to Qantas. Such value is ascertained by taking into account many factors. The may include status and fare class.

 

[drron]

Seems like a lot of us going out on QF15 in the coming weeks. I am booked on August 6.Transfer to QF107 in LAX.Though I am in J so no worries with upgrades!

 

[MarcB]

A further update on the loadings for my upcoming flight on Friday. Although the availability was high yesterday in all whY classes today it looks like this:

J9 C9 D9 I9 W9 T9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L0 V9 SC NC QC OC XC E0

Serfty, this seems to confirm what you had indicated about the cabin being heavily oversold. The only cheap fares they seem to want to sell now are V class - which aren't really that cheap - about $3500 return according to E/F - about the same as a "standard" whY fare at this time of year.

Although I'm considering that an op-up is a strong possibility on this flight, which could tempt me to cancel the request I have in and hope for the best, as there are 2 of us travelling on the same booking, I suspect they might upgrade other solo flyers first...plus as suggested by serfty yesterday, there is always the possibility that we'll head further forward and score our free PJs.

 

[MarcB]

Im on QF 107 on August 5. Im Platinum and have booked an economy seat and last week was able to choose at Premium economy seat (still classified as economy from a service point of view I have heard). Can you guys have a look at the loading - I don't understand how it works - and let me know if there are many spare seats?

Also, what do you think my chances are of an upgrade to Business? I cant upgrade with points (my ticket was too cheap) but I am platinum.

Thoughts?

QF 107 on 5 August looks like this:

RC F9 A9 J9 C9 D9 I9 W9 T9 B4 H3 K2 M2 L2 V2 S2 N1 Q1 O1 XC E0

In another post, I think serfty had indicated that availability that looked like this could indicate oversold whY. I won't speculate on UPG chances though - I am far too inexperienced in such things! Certainly on the seat map (which is not showing economy - only PE and Business), there are lots of empty Business seats but PE is only showing about 11 spares. Some of those PE seats are actually skybeds though in a 2 3 2 configuration.

I am also seated in PE for my LAXJFK run - but booked in economy. For the price I paid, I am pretty happy with that. Good way to test out the seats without forking out $6k! Any further UPG - even to PE properly would be a bonus...the loadings on mine are similar to on yours so I have my fingers crossed.

Can you see the seatmap for your flight on the Manage Your Booking section of the QF website when you login? As a WP I'd suspect that many of the empty seats you can see are what are left - besides those blocked for bassinets and disabled access.

 

[MarcB]

Here's an update for you all. 48 hours before the flight, QF has confirmed my request for a PE upgrade...I wonder how they would deal with a cancellation request which I can give up to 24 hours before the flight??

CMT and QF website both show the new class (Z) and the points are gone. Anyone else experienced an upgrade request for international coming through so early?

I think you are right serfty - this is going to be a very full flight up the back of the plane...thankful for my $650+45k pts skybed!!!