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A poster on Reddit shared his recent experience where a China Eastern Airlines crew was selling upgrades to Business Class after the plane had already taken off. I’ve seen airlines sell seats with more legrooms before takeoff, but never upgrades after takeoff.
Have you ever been offered an in flight upgrade after the flight has already begun?
byu/pelican678 inFlights
China Eastern was apparently offering Business Class upgrades for $2,500 each. This was the cost of a Business Class fare according to the poster.
All airlines have worked to better monetize their premium cabins. You’ll see countless posts on FlyerTalk with people lamenting airlines selling premium seats for tens of dollars (TODs) and not providing them to elite members as a complimentary benefit. This is generally voiced on domestic flights as airlines do not generally offer international flight upgrades for free.
Anthony’s Take: This is a new one for me. Passengers do try to self upgrade and that never works. Selling seats while in the air would make me think something was not being done above board, but it seems like this happens from time to time according to comments on the post.
(Featured Image Credit: SkyTeam.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
2 comments
Wow. What a great idea – And a stellar method of revenue-enhancement for the majors, which could be accomplished by the use of a app-based phone “blind bidding” system, where passengers could bid on multiple empty seats for a instant upgrade, prior to boarding at the gate. And another round of bidding, after the plane has boarded for remaining seats The app would then automatically issue a new e-ticket and seat assignment on the app, alleviating the need to manually collect upgrade fees at the gate or onboard, Sign me up ! 👍🏼
Yes. Maybe. This actually doesn’t seem too unusual when I think it through. Here’s why: In the UK (where I spend a good deal of time), when a passenger with an economy ticket wants to sit in a first class cabin, if the sign above the seat does not say RESERVED, then the passenger can do that. When the conductor comes by to check tickets, if a person is sitting outside the ticketed cabin, then the passenger can move or can buy the seat in the premium cabin.
Trains are much harder to manage–so many stops–than the premium cabins of airplanes. They sell liquor and snacks, why NOT sell instant upgrades. Frankly, it’s the most logical thing I have heard.
So probably it won’t happen with our legacies.