Not sure I’d pay the extra for first, yes you get nicer wines and food, a nicer, more luxurious lounge, but I’m not sure that means that much to me, over business.

I certainly wouldn’t pay, either my own or company money. As you say, it’s all a little better, but not enough better. Oh, and I get the more luxurious lounges anyway, through flying too much!

I’ve flown business on a number of occasions (Emirates and BA) and in my opinion it’s not the luxurious and glamorous experience it is made out to be. It is clearly much more comfy than flying cattle class, but spending several £k to sleep in a crappy small bed, watch a film on a small rubbish screen, and eat food that is clearly still airline food isn’t something that I aspire to. Ok, the booze is ok, but certainly no better than I’d drink at home.

For me, the best compromise is premium economy – a bit of extra space, but not too much extra ££

I suppose 1st or even business class is nice, as long as you don’t do what I do, go to sleep with the Bose sound cancelling headphones on for the entire flight. Longest I’ve slept for is only 8 hours though, so proper long haul may be worth the extra.

My business partner and I recently figured out a charter on a private jet is often equal or cheaper than both of us flying business…. now that is the only way to travel

I ride a singlespeed, doubt I’d notice the extra luxury of 1st. 🙂

it’s not the luxurious and glamorous experience it is made out to be

Agreed there. It isn’t all that luxurious or glamorous (With the exception of the Pier First Class lounge at HKG!). It is, however, much, much more relaxing.

As an illustration, I booked some flights today. Long haul, business class, on a Monday. I get to my hotel (with luck!) at around midnight. First meeting at 0800 on the Tuesday, then in meetings pretty much back to back until I fly home again on the Thursday. I’ll get back to LHR at around 0630 on Friday morning, home by 0900 or so hopefully. That’s a busy, busy week. I’ll be more relaxed, more rested and, crucially IMHO, far less resentful of having to spend time away from home for work. So, I’ll be more productive.

So, I’ll be more productive.

That’s what coke is for.

Amateur.

As an illustration, I booked some flights today. Long haul, business class, on a Monday. I get to my hotel (with luck!) at around midnight. First meeting at 0800 on the Tuesday, then in meetings pretty much back to back until I fly home again on the Thursday. I’ll get back to LHR at around 0630 on Friday morning, home by 0900 or so hopefully. That’s a busy, busy week. I’ll be more relaxed, more rested and, crucially IMHO, far less resentful of having to spend time away from home for work. So, I’ll be more productive.

This might be a naive question but in this modern era of telecommunications would it not be possible to do most of this shizzle with a phone or a video conference? Flying human beings around the globe to talk to other human beings with all the economic and environmental impact it has seems so 20th century.

It’s a bizarre thing Business class and even more so first class. It’s really a huge expense for the time spent.

I can fly business class on any flight if I want to book for the business but I only do this for flights over 5hrs or on flights if I want to do a good deal of work on the flight. Otherwise it’s not worth it on short haul. Also I won’t fly business if my colleagues aren’t also flying business.

First class is quite an experience (I’ve been upgraded) and I have sat there calculating how many high End bikes I could get for a few flights!

It is clearly much more comfy than flying cattle class, but spending several £k

The trips I’ve taken have been return to Vancouver, cattle class was £1250 plus £120 for bike, business was £1900 and I fitted a mates (who was flying econ) bike into my luggage allowance (3x 32kg) as well, saving him £120, minus the cost of a nice meal he paid for to say thank you.

So £500 for a nice, quietish lounge with comfy seats, nice food, free, decent enough, booze, a seat/bed with more legroom than I am tall (seatguru.com to tell you the best seats for this), priority check in and, of course, that smug feeling. Worth every penny.

Easier to sleep on a fold flat seat / bed.

Which I like flying east.

This might be a naive question but in this modern era of telecommunications would it not be possible to do most of this shizzle with a phone or a video conference? Flying human beings around the globe to talk to other human beings with all the economic and environmental impact it has seems so 20th century.

Depends.

Some stuff you definitely can do on the phone.

Video conferencing is generally a bit crap, you have to go to a room where everybody sits round a table so you can’t see their faces.

Telepresence is a bit better, but not ubiquitous yet. We have a room for it in a few offices around the world, you still have to go to a room, but there are multiple cameras and it’s a better view. It could easily take off when VR headsets get a bit better.

My last trip was a design workshop for a new software implementation. There are at least three separate technology teams and a vendor. To get that many people around the table for a week was expensive, but definitely worth it – would have taken a month on the phone.

Only flown a few times, to Zimbabwe in 94, turkey in 99, India in 2001 and all cattle class, not flown since as I know there is absolutely zero chance of my **** spine these days being able to cope with the seat position and being held in one position, a first class /business class ticket would be pretty much a yearly wage and the thought of wasting such an amount is abhorrent to my sensibilities regarding the value of money and what good it could do to others less fortunate.

Well someone had to say it………… 😉

Of course.. those people paying for first class, they are making it cheaper for everyone else, and bringing the benefits of travel to more people.

Think of it as wealth redistribution.

The clients want to feel the paperclips though

convert » This might be a naive question but in this modern era of telecommunications would it not be possible to do most of this shizzle with a phone or a video conference?

Most of my longer trips are for training (only trainer on this continent), or project kick off and delivery. For what I do being able to see whats going on across a factory or site is important and not something you can do over a vid link. We generally end up picking more good info from the people we meet along the way than some of those they suggest we meet.

To quote a senior manager when asked the same question re travel.

“You can’t properly tell someone off over VC or tele-presence” (He might have used stronger language)

Tele-presence is pretty good and has reduced travel a lot but sometimes face to face still adds more context etc.

I’ve traveled business a fair bit – but my current company has an “economy only” policy…. which sucks if you live in Australia!

I’ve flown business on BA, Virgin Atlantic, Air New Zealand and Qantas.

The best of those was Air New Zealand (both in quality and VFM), the worst was BA – but that was a free upgrade on Christmas eve, so can’t really complain.

The majority of long haul aircraft are 2 cabin configurations.

Maybe a few years ago…… used to be that Business class was the top tier. Now lots of long haul carriers (I suspect most of them) have a “first class” tier that sits above business.

Interestingly, Air New Zealand doesn’t have a 1st class…. which is probably why it’s business class is so good. I think the quality in Business class got “trimmed-back” by most airlines when they (re)introduced First, to try to differentiate between the two.

Travelling on my own dime is usually economy – but I do upgrade to premium if it’s not eye-wateringly expensive. Virgin Australia’s premium economy is excellent…. let-down only by the fact that it lands at the sh*t-hole that is Abu-Dhabi airport.

let-down only by the fact that it lands at the sh*t-hole that is Abu-Dhabi airport.

You need to be Velocity Platinum to get into the good bit these days, other wise gold gets your the Ex Pat return lounge with one shower and a bunch of west am fans not being racist but to the staff. It’s one of the places the board first pass is very welcome. It took a lot to get there and fell well short of maintaining this year.

Having been lucky enough to enjoy business class with my job, I’d have no hesitation if money was no object.

The business / first class experience from start to finish is much more pleasurable than that of cattle class.

Shirley people flying first class creates demand for first class seats which in turn reduces the number of passengers per plane which increases the ‘carbon footprint’ of each passenger?

That can’t be a good thing really can it?

Not sure I agree with the comment that Premium Economy is the best. On the Kangaroo route Premium Economy is as expensive or more expensive than flying Business with a Gulf Carrier / Turkish / Finnair, and its actually not much better than economy. Its basically an economy seat – a bit wider, no more legroom than economy in terms of real room vs. pitch (as the seat is physically bigger) and you get the same service as economy. I’ve been laying to Singapore with Premium Economy recently instead of Business via the Gulf Carriers for convenience of flying direct and it is dire. In fact one flight when PE was full I downgraded myself to economy and noticed little difference. Also with PE you don’t get access to the lounge and all the off-aircraft services. I’d never consider paying PE out of my own wallet, but would fly Business Class on a very special once-in-a-lifetime trip.

It is the case that First Class is a dying class. Not necessarily with the big traditional carriers on the Kangaroo route. But alot of the US airlines have ditched first, the Gulf Carriers are in the process of doing that. It’s alot of real-estate to take up on the aircraft for big expensive seats that don’t sell that could be swapped for double the business class seats that do sell.

Generally aircraft are getting smaller – big busses like the A380 and the big 777’s are hugely expensive to operate on a per-seat basis, so if you have them, you have to fill them or they will bankrupt you very quickly. That is a hell of alot of seats for an airline to sell on a daily basis. The latest breed of smaller 787’s / A350-900’s are smaller, have much better per-seat economics, are much much more efficient and cleaner and far more versatile able to be operated on short haul routes and ultra-long haul routes profitably. So as aircraft get smaller then first class tends to get ousted.

Its worth noting that the vast majority of business class passengers have not bought the ticket themselves. So we shouldn’t beat ourselves up too much about not being able to afford or justify spending the cash on Business Class.

As for replacing flying with video conferencing. It will never happen. For starters most air travel are leisure travellers, so you can’t go on holiday via video conference. Also business does video conferencing too – a hell of alot of it.Big business is global these days. BUT would you sign a big multi-million dollar deal without meating your counterpart in the other country? How would you fix a machine via video conference?

People are people and there will always be a need for people to meet each other and that is a good thing. Flying is gong to increase and its impact on the environment will increase too….but the OEMs are not ignoring this, they are taking it seriously and the shape of the aircraft you will be flying in 20-30 years will be very different than what we fly now and will be orders of magnitude cleaner and quieter. Currently flying accounts for about 3% of man-made pollution but the airport infrastructure and transport infrastructure to get people to and from airports is a significant contributor to pollution. SO that is actually where most of our efforts should be concentrated on to reduce the environmental impact. Aircraft will look after themselves as legislation will drive innovation, but for airports and transport infrastructure there needs to be more focus.

would you sign a big multi-million dollar deal without meating your counterpart in the other country?

😯

gowerboy – Member
Shirley people flying first class creates demand for first class seats which in turn reduces the number of passengers per plane which increases the ‘carbon footprint’ of each passenger?

That can’t be a good thing really can it?
Same as cars with one person in them really,and big SUV/4×4’s dropping kids off.
There will be a little because it’s there and some just want what comes with it.
Take the logic too far and we have economy only with the tight packed budget carrier seat layouts.
The forward sections get filled in plenty of places, they have been dropped in those that don’t use it.

Not sure I agree with the comment that Premium Economy is the best. On the Kangaroo route Premium Economy is as expensive or more expensive than flying Business with a Gulf Carrier / Turkish / Finnair, and its actually not much better than economy. Its basically an economy seat – a bit wider, no more legroom than economy in terms of real room vs. pitch (as the seat is physically bigger) and you get the same service as economy. I’ve been laying to Singapore with Premium Economy recently instead of Business via the Gulf Carriers for convenience of flying direct and it is dire. In fact one flight when PE was full I downgraded myself to economy and noticed little difference

Yep skipped the upgrade from economy to PE Brisbane to LA, FF meant I was in the front of economy with a row to myself, PE was rammed. The only thing I think I missed out on was the cheese and biscuits. However the return on Delta was proper cattle class, not one to relive.

On the gulf stuff there are always plenty turning left and on the ones where you exit through Bus/First it always looks well used. Even up through Singapore, they will be pushing those planes onto the big routes though where they know there are passengers who will pay extra.

A lot of people complain that video conferencing isn’t as good, and that it’s harder. Well yes, it is, but we need to make it better, and be better at it.

Wasting so many hours and causing so much environmental damage just because it’s a bit easier is madness. There are problems to solve here.

I’ve flown up to Glasgow for the sixth week because they want the customer to see me being there. I’ve spoken to colleagues a few times each week. Madness. It’s cost a whole extra day’s worth of time, never mind the money and CO2 output.

Not sure I agree with the comment that Premium Economy is the best.

You missed the word “compromise” off the end. Personally I’ve only experiences Virgin with free flyer points upgrades, so for £650 to thew carribean its s steal as I tend to drink my way through flying anyway and can’t sleep unmedicated.

Wasting so many hours and causing so much environmental damage just because it’s a bit easier is madness. There are problems to solve here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/Green-Party-supporters-most-likely-to-fly-long-haul/

A lot of people complain that video conferencing isn’t as good, and that it’s harder. Well yes, it is, but we need to make it better, and be better at it.

Hang on their caller! I actually enjoy swilling champers in business class courtesy of the company!

Did they serve spam?