In the US we've seen the trend of "basic economy" spread significantly. Delta was the first airline to introduce it several years back, though in the past couple of years American and United have followed Delta's lead (as they do on many things). We've seen the number of flights on which basic economy is available…
Continue reading: China Eastern Introduces Basic Economy
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Winnie the Jinping already turned the whole country into Basic Economy. These seats should sell just fine in the Asian market.
The silly thing is to block online check-in on basic economy fares. Presumably it costs the airline more to check passengers in in person.
I’m worried if premium Asian carriers (Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, etc.) might follow the lead!
It is interesting that the cheapest fares US-Asia still include seat selection and a checked bag, while US-Europe has gone full-on basic economy. Is this because of some US East Coast bias that Europe is close but Asia is really far away?
@AndrewY: exactly my thought! I flew China Eastern from JFK - Shanghai, not the greatest flight on economy.
Imagine being stuck at the back of the plane by the restrooms for a 13+ hours flight!
the one thing that all the full service airlines fail at with these basic fares is the total lack of "add on" sales. what to pick your seat? with will cost you. want to check a bag? it will cost you. these add on fees could be easy money just like they are for the ULLC airlines.
They are also aligned with Air France and KLM and have a joint venture and offer quite a good product , so it makes sense to have some synergy
I’m wondering where AF KL DL will transfer to Daxing Airport once it opens ?
China Eastern also sells basic domestic business class, which I was on from Beijing to Shanghai (cost about $200 USD). The only big difference that I could tell was that instead of going on the dedicated business class shuttle, you had to take the economy shuttle from the gate to the plane... Which was unfortunately
a terrible experience, being cramped in a cart loaded to the brim and having to wait for about half an hour in sweltering summer weather without A/C, all the while being smacked around by giant backpacks which are "totally under the weight limit".
For some reason, they only seem to sell these fares on Chinese websites when displayed in Chinese.
@Andrew or @john Are Cathay Pacific and Singapore nice even in economy ? Have you flown them in economy before ? What’s it like ?
China Eastern is great. Just flew them in economy from HKG to PVG. They wanted $1260 HKD for an upgrade to business class. All I had was $1200 HKD lol Can I put $60 HKD on my credit card ? No single method of payment only lol Glad I didn’t upgrade to business class.
I have no problem with BE (just don't book these fares) except that In the US airlines introduced BE as a way of increasing prices for regular economy. They charge more for the same economy product and service to avoid BE.
I suspect that many Chinese customers will be fighting them wanting to make changes and sitting in wrong seats!
"Priority upgrading" for First Class fares? Seems like just as usual they wrote this table without putting much thinking into it......