A business class seat is approximately 3 to 4 times the economy class seat when it comes to purchasing a ticket. It comes with some premium inflight dining as well along with some drinks! Below is a typical business class in Lufthansa.
Now to Answer your question. Consider a flight from Frankfurt ←→ New York on Business Class, which costs around € 1500 for a round trip and the same in Economy class costs € 500.
Assume business class is empty and has say 2 seats empty, however the Economy class is 100% occupied. Now, if they bump up 2 people from economy, the airline still has to provide them services of Business Class, which means more money to be spent on them for “FREE”. They cannot really discriminate folks in Business Class. Not a nice idea and hence they leave the Business seats empty.
I prefer an empty business class too. No rush for the bathrooms ehh ? 🙂
Now why do they upgrade sometimes ?
When economy is 105% occupied ( all 105% have confirmed tickets) if there are available seats in Business, they will occupy the 5% in Business and 100% in Economy. The reason is the cost of upgrading them to Business would be way cheaper than paying them for hotel for a night + Transportation + Meals in the hotel + another economy ticket in the same route. Trust me rerouting passengers is the toughest job for the airline.
PS
I have been getting replies giving all kinds of rationale. This is my rationale for the question. But I am not the authority to decide how someone gets upgraded or not! so please don’t TAUNT me!
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