Interesting discussion ... always good to cause a little controversy!
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Remember that the First Class market is mainly business travellers in the week (whose travel is paid for by work) but leisure at weekends.
My main route is East Coast and I do see plenty of passengers in 1ST, even more than 50% sometimes, who appear to be leisure travellers. However I would still expect that the proportion of
revenue from business travellers could be significantly higher during the week than at weekends due to business proclivity to purchase flexible tickets or at shorter notice.
It's a cheap way for someone to sample 1st on the spur of the moment and may like it enough to buy 1st Advances in the future (I always go for Advance First if I travel with virgin)
That is not a bad point but my one concern would be the extent to which people will upgrade with WF on the spur of the moment. I know from my home industry (airlines) that passengers tend not to do this even when the price is reasonable.
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I use weekend first upgrades regularly on the part of SWT's network where Advance fares are not offered at all; so what does your proposal achieve for me?
I would not advocate removing WF when Advance fares are not offered. In fact, I even take advantage of the WF supplement on FGW's commuter services myself since STD + WF < 1ST.
Without them First Class will be empty at weekends
I dispute this statement for my main TOC, East Coast. 1ST is often full at the weekends in my experience and most of the pax are in reserved seats, suggesting that they are on Advance rather than WF supplements.
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One time when Weekend First is very useful is (e.g. on many FGW HST services out of Paddington on a Sunday) when the standard class carriages are overcrowded, and those in First are largely empty. Now, a regular traveller on this line might know to be prepared for this, but a non-regular may well not: but in either case the ability to upgrade once on-board is extremely useful.
That is a very interesting point. It would be interesting to explore the options for
any day 1ST supplements at a price > WF. Greater Anglia do this already.
Even if some of the First seats are filled by advances, Weekend First offers a way of filling the rest of them. If seats are available people can decide to take one on the spur of the moment, for example if Standard is crowded, but if most/all of the First seats are booked for Advances then the conductor can just say sorry not available.
Whilst perfectly valid, my concern about this approach would be that a sound fare structure will give all passengers willing to pay for 1ST an incentive to do so at the time of booking. Allowing a passenger to take 1ST only if she finds that STD is full may well cause the TOC to spill revenue.
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As has already been mentioned, most trains on which this product is available will be carrying no one at all in First Class should the offer be withdrawn.
I dispute this statement based on my experience with East Coast. On most weekend services 1ST is quite busy and most pax are in reserved seats, suggesting that they are on Advance tickets rather than WF supplements.
If the WF went up to £10, I'd probably still pay it. If it was only £2.50 more, but I had to book it as part of an advance ticket, I wouldn't bother.
Maybe you would once you had experienced the drunk train!
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i) If your offering a weekend upgrade, then a sensible TOC would not price First AP higher than a STD+WF. Therefore not sure how it would improve revenue?
I speculate that abandoning WF could potentially allow TOCs to command much higher fares at specific points in the booking cycle when pax booking would have high willingness to pay but might otherwise take STD + WF.
ii)Not sure how you reduce the risk of overcrowding?
I speculate that it might reduce the overcrowding in STD on the grounds that the TOCs currently face the problem:
max. revenue = STD + WF + 1ST subject to STD demand, WF demand, 1ST demand and min. overcrowding ...
... which is probably simpler to solve than the same problem without the WF element.
iii) What do you mean????
I mean that if all 1ST pax hold full 1ST tickets, Advance or not, the TOCs should roll out the week day service and advertise it as a benefit of 1ST travel, encouraging more people to upgrade at (perhaps slightly) higher fares. Admittedly the revenue mix is likely to be in lower fare buckets than during the week, but I still reckon that there might be a revenue boosting element there.
CrossCountry are selling First Advance tickets at the weekend which are much more expensive than Off Peak+Weekend First. Clearly not a sensible TOC then???
I thought we'd established
this particular fact some time ago!
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Someone buying the First Advance is guaranteed a First Class seat. If they go for the Off Peak they can only get a Weekend First if there are seats available.
A good, strong incentive to upgrade at the time of booking if the pax in question has high willingness to pay. But why not make the incentive stronger by abandoning WF altogether?
FCC don't have a Weekend First offer, so their first class sections carry fresh air all day at weekends. Presumably something to do with the difficulty of collecting the revenue on DOO trains.
Still irritating though - I'd happily buy a 1st upgrade on my occasional weekend day trips to King's Lynn, but, to say the least, the current price differential is unattractive:-
KGX - KLN day return at weekends:
Standard (with Network Card): £13.65
First: £53.50
I would see a clear case here to consider posting a new weekend day return fare of 1ST = GBP 23.65 or similar allowing FCC to capture marginal revenue. It would all depend on whether or not the downsell from pax currently paying GBP 53.50 would outweigh the revenue boost from others who would otherwise travel STD paying 1ST.
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There will also be first class walk on passengers to cater for - perhaps not many at the weekend but not non-existent. They need to be taken into account when deciding what advances to offer.
I agree. And abandoning WF increases the likelihood that these pax will be able to secure seats, which would offer incentives for people to buy these expensive fares and so potentially boost TOC revenue.
I think the obvious answer is to offer a first-class version of every standard ticket, at a fixed cost multiple - say, 1.7 times the standard fare - and get rid of the Weekend First supplement.
As I said in a previous post, it would be interesting to investigate fixed cost upgrades from STD to 1ST. But I am not convinced of a fixed cost multiple on the grounds that there may be points in the booking cycle where to maximise revenue TOCs must offer 1ST > STD x (1 + u) where u is the upgrade price.
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There is already a first class version of most standard tickets.
Weekend First is there to manage capacity better, and to make money for the TOC. Charge £15 or £20 and people will yupgrade. Charge 2x the standard return- which even super off peak is a lot of money- and people won't. Result? TOC loses out on £20 revenue and gets to cart fresh air around instead.
I agree to some extent. Thinking particularly of commuter routes I would speculate that it would be better for TOCs to offer full 1ST tickets at STD + current WF supplement rather than risk that a passenger will not upgrade once they are on the train.
Of course, the reason there aren't is quite likely that they would be counter-productive.
A brave assumption that the TOCs know what they are doing on the pricing strategy side!
