Turkish Airlines is removing premium economy as it could not achieve scale with the cabin, which the carrier only offered on 12 777-300ERs in a nine-row 2-3-2 configuration with a total of 63 seats.
Speaking to the APEX editor’s blog at the recent IATA AGM in Cape Town, Turkish Airlines CEO Temel Kotil said the carrier will replace the premium economy cabin with more business and regular economy seats.
Some of the major carriers that have introduced premium economy have either offered it nearly across their entire fleet (like Cathay Pacific) or only on a sub-fleet used on routes with high point-to-point traffic (Air New Zealand, Qantas).
A high percentage of Turkish Airlines’ traffic is connecting, but only offering premium economy on a fraction of the fleet made it difficult to sell. Kotil says Turkish was unable to achieve scale on the cabin. Turkish’s premium economy configuration was also less dense but larger than on peers. On the -300ER Turkish fitted 7-abreast while Cathay and Virgin Australia seat eight. Turkish had a total of 63 seats compared to 34 on Cathay and 40 on Virgin Australia.
Additionally, the industry has seen premium economy translate better to a widebody environment, but narrowbodies comprise 80% of Turkish’s fleet.
Rather than fit premium economy to its other widebodies and work on a narrowbody premium economy cabin, Kotil says Turkish will instead improve both economy and business classes to greater appeal to former premium economy passengers. “It’s better just to have higher business class, higher economy,” Kotil says.
Amongst the improvements will be bars in business and economy class. Kotil is known in the industry for his cheerful attitude, which he displays when describing the bar: “You can go and drink and be happy.”
http://blog.apex.aero/cabin-interior/lack-of-scale-drove-turkish-airlines-to-remove-premium-economy/