At least in the airline industry in the United States, there’s no denying that the demand for premium cabin travel isn’t just a fad, but instead, is a more structural change to consumer demand. People value nice travel experiences more than in the past, and a large percentage of the profits in the industry coming from loyalty programs also plays into that.
What’s interesting is that despite this trend, we haven’t actually seen the size of domestic first class cabins increase materially over the years. Could that finally change? It seems likely…
Delta may increase the size of first class cabins
During the Delta Q2 2025 earnings call, JP Morgan Analyst Jamie Baker asked about how we’re continuing to see revenue growth for premium cabin travel, while we see decline in economy demand, and how that could play out in the long term:
“So the spread between premium growth and main cabin contraction widened to 10 points in the second quarter. The spread has been accelerating for the past several quarters, but it seems that this is a little bit more about main cabin weakness than just premium resilience. So can I ask if premium trends, whether you define that by revenue or maybe, I don’t know, paid load factor, did it match your expectations in the second quarter? And is it safe to assume, given your earlier commentary that we see at least another quarter of expansion?”
Delta President Glen Hauenstein responded with the following:
“I think there’s nothing in any of the forward bookings that would have us indicate that there’s a diminishing demand for premium cabins or services. And so as we continue to look — reevaluate even now the LOPA is on the airplanes and put more and more premium, we are able to do two things. One is sell more of it, and two is accommodate more of our heaviest frequent flyers with upgrades, which is something we want to continue to do to provide additional value to them. So we’re very excited about where we sit today, and we’re very excited about the possibilities moving forward.”
For those not familiar, LOPA stands for “layout of passenger accommodations,” referring to the layout of an aircraft. In other words, Delta is considering changing the layout of some of its aircraft, to increase the number of premium seats.
This should be a change across the industry
The “big three” US airlines should introduce materially bigger first class cabins on domestic flights, at least on a significant percentage of aircraft. It’s something I’ve believed and argued for a long time, and I don’t understand why it hasn’t happened.
The reality is that airlines have gotten much better at monetizing their premium cabins. Over the course of a little over a decade, Delta has gone from selling 11% of its first class seats, to selling 88% of its first class seats. We’ve largely seen airlines introduce much bigger premium cabins on long haul flights, but the most part, domestic first class cabins aren’t any bigger than they were 15 years ago.
Sure, we can point to some airlines adding a row of first class seats here or there, but the trend overall hasn’t been in the direction of having a higher percentage of seats be first class, when you compare current fleets to MD-80/90 and 757 fleets back in the day.
That doesn’t make sense to me, because demand is much higher, the economics of having bigger first class cabins has improved, and the ability to monetize the cabin is also better than before:
- We’ve seen airlines increasingly upgauge to larger fuel efficient aircraft (like the A321neo), but actually filling every seat in some markets is challenging, which is why the focus should be on increasing average fares
- Additional first class seats would obviously come at the expense of economy seats; however, very few flights are at 100% of capacity (at least before standby passengers are accommodated), and if economy passengers are being displaced, you’d view the opportunity cost in terms of the cheapest basic economy tickets that are booked
- If airlines want their loyalty programs to continue to be lucrative, there needs to be some number of upgrades that are awarded, or there’s the risk of killing the golden goose
- With major US carriers already selling almost 90% of their first class seats, there’s going to be a real issue as we continue to see airlines introduce larger premium cabins on long haul flights, in terms of accommodating connecting passengers
- Domestic first class isn’t like Air France La Premiere; having various pathways to filling seats doesn’t do much to cannibalize demand or dilute revenue potential
So I’m curious to see how this plays. Obviously demand isn’t equal in all markets, but at a minimum, you’d think we’d see an increasingly large subfleet of planes with significantly larger first class cabins. After all, there are lots of markets that don’t necessarily require flat beds, but where there’s still a lot of demand for premium seats.
Heck, as JetBlue continues to be struggle with profitability, I think the airline should go all-in in this direction. Delta is reportedly planning on introducing first class in 2026, though I think the airline should go to the extreme, and introduce huge first class cabins, given its bases in New York (JFK) and Boston (BOS).
Bottom line
With continued strong premium demand and weaker economy demand, Delta appears to be considering changing the layout of its aircraft, and introducing more first class seats. Despite the percentage of first class seats being sold increasing exponentially over the years, we haven’t seen any widespread changes to the size of first class cabins on domestic flights.
I think it’s only a matter of time until this becomes an industry trend, especially with premium cabins on long haul flights becoming increasingly bigger.
Do you think we’ll see a trend of bigger first class cabins on domestic flights?
