In the old days — we’re talking about the 2010s here — when you boarded a plane, and glanced with envy or disdain at the passengers sinking into their plush First-Class seats, you were looking at an assembly of road warriors.
A traveling salesman might be resting his haunches in seat 2C. Your local congressman might be reading the newspaper in row 3. Grandma might be downing her pre-flight champagne on another visit to one of her children and grandchildren scattered around the country.
All the flights they took earned them status, and status earned them upgrades.
But the frequent flyers are no longer up front. The salesman is flying coach, and Grandma’s back in steerage. The good seats are for the folks willing to pay extra.
These days, first class is no longer something earned, but something bought. Familiar faces are out. Big spenders are in.
Almost 90% of first-class seats used to be filled by upgrading frequent flyers who had bought coach seats, according to airline industry media, and now that number is down to 12%. So in that Boeing 737-800, 14 of the 16 passengers paid for it.
Airline executives are very proud of this change. Former Delta Air Lines President Glen Hauenstein bragged about it when he ran the airline, and now that he’s retired, he points to this change as one of his accomplishments.
Armed with artificial intelligence tools and improved tracking of customers’ online behavior, executives are confident they can extract the maximum number of dollars out of customers while leaving the fewest number of vacancies. The apps are now built to upsell coach customers, and they seem to be having success.
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In doing this, of course, the airlines are devaluing customer loyalty. The most valuable part of the frequent flyer programs wasn’t the points that eventually added up to a free trip or two. It was always the status that got you free upgrades.
Status was almost a relationship between the passenger and the airline. That was unfitting, the executives concluded. This is a simple transaction — you give them cash, they give you a seat. None of this “treating your best passengers well” stuff. This is capitalism, after all.