In fact, Dedicate mainly serves oil-related markets where yields for business travel are high but where there is little “cheap fare” demand – some companies have an economy-only travel policy but that doesn’t necessarily mean economy is cheap… (Example, not Dedicate, but I flew to JNB at short notice last week on AF… £2129 in Y-class or £2270 in J-class)

Makes sense. An upgrade costs effectively nothing… a body weighs as much in a 29 inch seat as it does in a fully flat bed.

Course there is, just like there’s demand for business class and economy class on flights to Europe, or where-ever. Ryanair manages OK on short haul economy only, why shouldn’t Transat on economy long haul? I wasn’t saying htat there was no market for economy, I was merely pointing out that in some situations an economic business case can be made for an airline to run an all business class operation – some airlines will chose to do this, whilst others may go the opposite way, and others more will continue to maintain both types of service. Whilst business-jets have skimmed some of the premium market, none the less I foresee more business-class-only services springing up in future in some markets, particularly if the rigours and hassles of travel become even more onerous in future.

Andy

Logically speaking:
if, on a route, there is a demand for business class
and on the same route, there is a demand for economy class

then segregating the business class passengers on a few planes (and airlines) means they have much fewer flight times to choose from. It would seem to be much preferrable to distribute business class between all flights, to ensure good choice of flights…