British Airways ripped out economy seats to make room for 106 business class seats on their A380s. That's not a typo. One hundred and six lie-flat beds on a single airplane. They looked at a plane that holds 469 people and decided the problem was too many of those people could afford to be there.
The airline calls this a bet on high-end travel. Analysts call it responding to market demand. I call it the exact moment British Airways admitted coach passengers are just human ballast they're legally required to carry between the profitable rows.
They're also adding premium economy because apparently regular economy wasn't depressing enough. Now you can pay extra to sit in a slightly less humiliating section of the plane while the guy in 2A gets a massage and watches you walk past him like a f*cking serf on your way to seat 47E.
The math here is beautiful. Remove cheap seats. Add expensive seats. Charge more money. This required a team of consultants, multiple board meetings, and probably a McKinsey deck that cost more than your car.
Some retail trader right now is reading this headline and thinking it's bullish for IAG because premium travel means higher margins. He's already calculating his position size. He's going to buy calls. He will lose money on those calls for reasons completely unrelated to how many business class seats fit on an A380.
The high-end travel boom they're betting on will last exactly as long as it lasts. Could be years. Could be months. British Airways will have already welded the new seats into the floor by the time they find out. But at least 106 people per flight will get to lie down while flying to London, which is the most important thing a civilization can accomplish.
Photo by Isaac Struna on Unsplash
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