Tag Archives for first class.
First class cabins are shrinking around the world, even as airlines add more premium seats to planes. Business class has gotten better. But the traditional narrative about the end of the first class is wrong, and not just for airlines like Air France that remain committed to the product. In fact, Air France is among the smaller players with first class, dwarfed not just by Emirates but even by Lufthansa and BA.
Cheap ‘first class buy ups’ can be a great deal even as they make elite status so much less valuable. I recently purchased a couple of them and it caused me to refresh my thinking around how much I’m willing to pay.
Is it time to eliminate hot nuts in first class? They’re boring and they do not distinguish the product. It’s like airlines aren’t even trying. And that’s why coming up with a replacement seems like a real opportunity to wow customers with something different.
There won’t be doors. Instead, like the current seat, there’s a privacy curtain for the seat. What’s nice is that the center seats feature a “full-height, electric sliding partition” for total separation or allow passengers to more fully travel together.
They’ve removed overhead bins from the cabin – something other carriers do in first class, as well, to create a more spacious feel. For storage there’s a sliding drawer that holds carry-ons, a drawer for footwear, and a compartment for personal items and a wardrobe.
There’s a strange reason that American Airlines serves meals in first class between Chicago O’Hare and Denver.
When I was first traveling for work, the first class cabin was mostly upgrades. And that meant it was frequent business travelers, who skewed middle aged and male. First class fares have come down a lot, there are plenty of upsells to leisure travelers, and as little as 13% of first class seats may be going to upgrades (Delta, but other airlines are catching up to them). The demographics of who is sitting up front have changed, but there are still remnants of the past.
Parents flying Delta first class from Tampa to Atlanta allowed their child to place stickers all over the seating area around them – and leave it that way. After all, they probably had a connection to catch!
Tampa – Atlanta is only 406 miles and seems like a lot of work for a child to accomplish so quickly, but apparently they had the process automated.
Airline first class hasn’t been for the wealthy in 40 years. Domestically, it went from a place filled with upgraded upper middle class middle managers to a place filled with people who have $40 or, sadly, people who have $40 available on a credit card.
Whether or not first class is ‘worth it’ depends, of course, on how much you value it and on your available funds but the modest increment means the extra cost is frequently easy to justify.
The carrier has changed the way they sell tickets, offering fare bundles rather than a la carte and more premium services. Now they’re taking it a step further.
British Airways has unveiled its new first class seat for the Airbus A380, to debut in ‘early’ 2026. The seat is based off of the Collins Aerospace RTX.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
