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.
Oliver Ranson identifies that there are over 8,000 international first class seats per day on around 1,000 daily flights, operating an average distance of 3,755 miles.
This distance is surprisingly short. First Class travellers do not buy plane tickets because the flight they want is long. They buy it because they want to travel in as fine a style as possible without going private.
Business class is surely “good enough” for New York JFK – Paris yet it’s a flagship route for Air France to target for their new first cabin.
Without Etihad in the data, the Mideast has 50% of global first class capacity by seats (and Qatar Airways has first class only on its small fleet of A380s).
Etihad First Apartment
Etihad First Apartment
That’s because Emirates is the airline most all-in on first class – with 77% (378) of their flights offering the product.
Emirates A380 Shower Suite
BA is second in first class (if you can call their product that, they do) offering 792 daily first class seats across 87 flights. Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa plus SWISS) offer 788 seats – just behind BA – across even more flights at 104. Air France, which is known for its commitment to first class, actually only offers 104 seats per day, a tiny fraction of BA and Lufthansa.
New First Class, Credit: Air France
The biggest first class routes in the world include London – Singapore, Dubai, and Tokyo; New York JFK- London, Tokyo, and Dubai; Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – Dubai; and Los Angeles – London, Sydney, and Dubai. Three different airlines (Singapore Airlines, British Airways, Qantas) offer first class non-stop between London and Singapore.
It remains a much bigger part of the business for Asian carriers and Mideast ones than for U.S. carriers, which the last remaining holdout – American Airlines – is slated to drop the product with their Boeing 777-300ER retrofit.
American Airlines Flagship First Class
Yet there’s actually a bigger market for first class than there used to be even as business class has gotten better.
- there are more millionaires than ever before and first class is a luxury good – it should be marketed as one (focusing on benefits, not features).
- centimillionaires may fly private for short haul but more frequently trade down for long haul. Private gets far more expensive for transatlantic, doubly so for transpacific.
- and there’s still a market for senior executive business travelers flying long haul doing major deals where the airfare is a rounding error and the risk and cost of being at anything other than truly top of game is far greater than the incremental cost of a first class ticket.
Cathay Pacific First Class
The market, then, is long haul between the most major centers of entertainment and commerce. First class is costly because it takes up more space per passenger, because the seats are expensive (and higher maintenance), and because it involves a differentiated service and more staff on board potentially. But first class is also a revenue generator,
- It adds incremental ticket revenue from those that would buy up
- It adds ticket revenue from competitors by offering a better product high end customers choose
- It adds ticket revenue from those choosing not to fly private
- It helps generate a revenue premium for tickets in other cabins because of the halo affect demonstrating the quality an airline can offer and burnishing its overall reputation – Emirates sees this, it has a great reputation because of an over-the-top first class experience so people choose to fly the brand even though their business class product is inferior.
- Even frequent flyers making once in a lifetime redemptions add value, it may be a loss leader but drives aspirational earning of rewards through cobrand credit cards – which are the single biggest driver of high margin revenue for many airlines, with the cobrand partner being the single largest buyer of travel
Singapore Airlines Suites Class
Singapore Airlines Suites Class
To do this, though, means more than just selling a $100 wine rather than a $30 one – that’s not worth thousands of dollars more. It means selling the difference between being truly relaxed and refreshed after a flight rather than beaten down and muddling through the day even after an overnight in a flat seat. It means selling that air travel is part of the travel experience and part of celebrating life.
Any airline with the resources can buy a large flat seat and pay for good catering. Creating a true lifestyle brand experience creates a moat against competition – the opposite of the commodity mindset that most airlines have adopted. Rather than being unprofitable, first class therefore carries the potential to be the most profitable since it’s the most de-commoditized.
And in a world where so few do it, it’s easy to get a head start. And it’s less expensive than you’d think, Qatar Airways adding caviar to their entire business class costs just a couple million dollars a year.
Cathay Pacific Caviar and Balik Salmon
By the way American Airlines could offer a really great international first class product instead of dropping the product, but that’s not something this management ever had a vision for.
In the US the difference between First and Business hasn’t been that great. No way do I ever see any of the US3 putting showers on their aircraft. One thing that would be interesting is the use of private air travel in the US compared to other areas of the world. Once you get in that price range you’re now in the realm of private. No annoying TSA, crowded lounges (even premium lounges), lazy flight attendants.
Good Business Class (Qatar, Singapore etc) is better than a poor First Class (BA), but a good First Class is an experience in itself. I think the segment you missed is just people that are taking a long-haul vacation, and want to start it in style. Sure, it needs some money, but if you play the points game well, it often doesn’t need too much, and can make the vacation start at the airport (or at least, on the plane) rather than when you reach your destination.
Our last trip was BA Business (average, as we all know, especially on the 380), Singapore Suites (fantastic) and Qatar Q Suites for the ride back. Obviously cramped compared to Singapore, but the food was top notch, arguably better than Singapore. Total cost for those tickets was <$6k (with a bunch of points, of course), which in my mind, given we were in the air for 2 full days total, was well worth it.
A senior executive who is truly deserving of that title is always at the top of their game. If the first class fare is a rounding error, then great, I would go for it too. But, let’s dispense with the fiction that it makes or breaks anything.
Most of us aren’t senior execs and can’t relate to what I just said, so here’s an analogy.
Have you ever been implored to “be nice” or whatever? You know in the old days when a flight delay meant you had to stand in a lengthy queue for customer service and a single overworked agent fielded rebooking, hotel vouchers and the like, for one customer after another? You were probably told to “be nice.”
Here’s the thing: a nice person doesn’t need to be told to be nice, niceness is who they are and they are always nice all the time. Reminding them they should be nice is like reminding a fish it needs to be underwater.
Elaborating further, while a nice person doesn’t need to be told to be nice, a rude person who is told to be nice doesn’t know what to do with that instruction because they don’t know what it means to be nice in the first place.
If you really want a rude person to be nice, you need to give them very specific actionable instructions. For example (and I’m not saying these are applicable to flight rebooking – but just as a general example): “Start with a smile, say hello, ask ‘how are you,’ and phrase your requests as questions like ‘may I switch to the 9am flight?’ rather than ‘get me on the 9am flight.'”
We recently returned from a three-week trip from Malta to Japan (Tokyo), to Tahiti, back to Tokyo (Kyoto), then back to Malta, via FRA. We had no intention to be zombies. Out and about! That, in spite of 2-14 hour and 2-12 hour flights. Back and forth through numerous time zones and crossing the dateline twice.
Two LH 321 business class flights, two LH 747 first flights, and two Air Tahiti 787 business class (don’t have FC). Hard and soft products excellent. FA’s provided wonderful service. Not even a hint of bitchy U.S. type service.
One service that LH provides was meeting us in Frankfurt and escorting us to domestic FC lounge for our biz class flight back to Malta. What made this special is that while many FC flights park at Z gates, making it easy walking to A gates. Our flight parked at a B gate, which is a nightmare getting through security and construction to A gates. Fantastic.
When we flew to Tokyo, because of schedule change, we overnited at FRA hotel. Then instead of walking to the term. 1 check-in and all the crowds, we walked an additional couple hundred meters, and went to the LH First Class terminal, gave an assigned person our bags, tickets and passports. And then took us to its restaurant. When it was time to board, she came again and took us downstairs and handed our tickets and passports to the immigration guy. He blessed us and we were taken by Porsche to the plane.
Oh, and we checked in at Haneda for our flight back to Frankfurt. Check-in was handled by ANA. She met us at the check-counter, took our tickets and passports, handling all the process. Then she escorted us through security, via an air crew line. She then asked my wife if she could assist her with duty free, and away they went. I found a couch and waited. Half an hour later they returned, and she walked us to the ANA Suites lounge.
Was it all worth it, to us? HELL YES! And we will do it again when we go to Singapore again. To travel in comfort and entirely stress free is fantastic. Whether using points and/or Euros it added another dimension to our experience. While some people use it for shorter range flights, we find it adds to the experience for long haul vacations.
Today’s best business class is lie flat seats and all aisle access. This product would have been called first class 2 decades ago.
@Alan Z, Why not try Air France next time, for comparison?
Pascal says:
Thanks for the tip. Do they fly to Singapore?
I’ll gladly pay for First on Emirates and Singapore or a few others- even though it is frightfully expensive. It’s like living as a Vanderbilt in the 19th century.
I can only afford to do it once a year. But it has been the highlight of many a trip.
The person commenting that “be nice” analogy posted it on the wrong thread, just in case anyone comes for her. It’s an honest mistake.
@Alan Z Of course! I heard they provide exactly the same kind of services you described : unfortunately I didn’t try La Première…for the moment!
BA has shrunk the 777 F cabin from 14 seats to 8 seats and offers a universally bemoaned F product for not being MORE opulent. On the A380, the new F cabin has shrunk from 14 seats to 12.
EK’s 777 F cabin has shrunk from 8 seats to 6. TBD on the A380.
Both BA and EK are adding more planes to their fleet that don’t have any F cabins at all.
So the carriers we are pointing to as evidence of the great demand for F, are shrinking cabins and reducing the percentage of their fleet that even have F.
Is that really the best evidence we have of how great an opportunity F is?