Originally Posted by
Packrat
Usually most 1st class seats are filled with mileage or status upgrades. On the average only 20% of the seats or less are filled with people who actually are paying full first class price.
Especially domestic - and at that most people "paying" for first bought a last-minute Y ticket for business and got the automatic upgrade; when I was flying for consulting business would do this a lot. Hardly anybody would actually buy domestic first class ticket per se, almost never makes sense.