Home Business More Legroom, No Middle Seat: Even Budget Airlines Are Going Premium

More Legroom, No Middle Seat: Even Budget Airlines Are Going Premium

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By Edward Russell

Moritz Winkler began flying regularly for work about a decade ago. Nearly once a month he would make a 10-hour trek from Los Angeles to Germany — in coach.

It was about a year after he began flying frequently that Winkler, who works in tech and now lives south of San Jose, received a surprise upgrade to business class on a personal trip to India. It changed the way he wanted to fly.

“The difference in experience from something that you actively despise or dread to something you’re actually looking forward to — that just blew my mind,” Winkler said. “When we landed after that flight, I told myself, ‘I have to find a way to do this again.’”

An increasing number of travelers like Winkler are willing to pay up for more comfort at 35,000 feet, a shift that’s prompting sweeping changes at U.S. airlines as they race to upgrade their onboard offerings.

Faith Based Events
“People don’t like to board last and not have luggage space. They don’t like to then pay for choosing seats. By packing all of these into a premium offering … you can convince even budget-conscious customers to pay,” Gad Allon, a professor at Wharton and director of the school’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, wrote in an email.

Or, as travel analyst Henry Harteveldt put it: “It boils down to three words: Flying coach sucks.”

A first-class boom

When airlines talk about “premium” seats, they can mean several different things. On domestic flights, there is “first class” at the front of the plane. This typically means two seats on either side of the aisle instead of three, with more legroom and greater recline; priority boarding; free bags; and better food — hot meals on longer flights — and drink options.

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