AIRLINES are scrapping some of their economy seats to make room – for more expensive ones on their planes.
Air France‘s new La Premiere cabin recently launched onboard, but costs $11,000 (£8,288.87) to travel between and , America.
Yet, there are passengers that are willing to pay this.
The La Premiere cabin is part of Air Frances $550million (£414.4million) investment to upgrade existing planes and lounges and push to attract higher spending .
But they aren’t the only airline doing this, reports the WSJ.
Airlines across the planet are racing to build the most exclusive and available on the market, for passengers who are willing to pay the top dollar.
This includes upgrading soft amenities, such as caviar and champagne, teaming up with designers to provide custom pajamas and partnering with to upgrade menu offerings.
The push is partially as a result of business passengers not returning to pre-COVID levels and therefore airlines are looking for ways to increase their profits.
This is because are there to subsidise the cost of flying, whereas premier seats and cabins are there to make the airline .
Essentially, airlines can charge more for business and making them more profitable.
But all of this depends on the amount of money regular leisure passengers are willing to spend.
For example, a regular economy seat can cost under $1,000 (£753.53), for a return flight between and
This then doubles to $2,000 (£1,507.07) for a
But the jump to a La Premiere cabin, for instance, goes up to $11,000 (£8,288.87).
Cabins are more private and do have more space – La Premiere cabins span 38-square-foot and have five windows each.
In comparison some first-class cabins span 40-square-feet and some cabins sprawl across 50-square-feet.
For the ultimate luxury and space, even has a 125-square-foot residence.
Yet despite this, it remains unclear whether leisure passengers spending more money on these seats will actually last.
With the waitlist for and components being long, airlines have to commit to seat layout far in advance.
This means need to work out demand for more expensive seats.
This may include looking at specific routes, to see whether people spend more money on one route over another and consequently there is higher demand for more premium seats.
Then airlines can assess whether to get rid of economy seats to make room for more premium seats.
If the number of economy seats were reduced, it could cause them to become more expensive as demand may also increase for these seats.
Airbus also recently
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