The price of a first-class fare for a flight overseas is often eight to ten times the price of a coach ticket to the same destination. This dramatic difference in expense is very difficult for most folks to justify. Even businesses, who have long provided the mainstay of first-class passengers, are beginning to wince at the cost, some offering cash abatements to employees to encourage them to weather coach class instead of claiming their prerogative in the echelon of first or business classes.
So what do you get from first class? More and more, I believe that the service level in first-class serves as a barometer that keeps in some view the fact of how coarse coach-class service has degraded. In first class you retain that premise that you are the paying customer and entitled to cooperation and an outcome on most issues that caters to your preferences and point of view. This may seem subtle, but in first class you are doing things on your terms. In coach you are doing things on their terms. Based on a recent American Airlines flight from JFK to London Heathrow, here is a narrative sample of the first-class difference.
First of all, your personal treatment and the regard you get from the service provider is markedly different and elevated in every segment of your travel experience at the airport. There is a special first-class check in line, shorter, more polite, smiles, cooperation, less inquisition about carry on baggage, etc. This follows with you to the premium departure lounge (on American you only get the lounge for transatlantic flights, not first-class domestic). In the lounge you have room to spread out, room for your kids, you have quiet, nice chairs, drink vouchers, refreshment, Internet connectivity, magazines, a shower. They call your flight for you and you need not be troubled about keeping track. The appointments are not plush, but they are spread out for you and available without asking or waiting.
Getting on the flight you receive that polite first call to board and you swan on to the craft to see smiles and helpfulness (usually you are ahead of even families struggling with kids). Your jacket is taken and hung, your bag lifted to an ample, empty overhead bin. You get a little welcome package with a toothbrush, socks, an eyemask, lip balm, etc. There is a plush pillow and real blanket at your disposal. A drink arrives before the other passengers even get to the first waive of seating. The drink thing, it should be noted, never stops through the flight. There is Pommery champagne, call liquors, coffee, tea, and all the water you care to drink (though curiously we were allowed only one .5 liter of Evian bottle per passenger, which was refilled on demand from a larger bottle). A menu awaits you with salads mixed seat side and a pick-and-choose assortment of meal components that is below restaurant quality, but miles above anything you might generally have tossed your way in coach. Of course, you also have your own specialty lavatories (I went to business class by mistake and this was noticed and commented on by an air steward - I was entitled to better and he wanted me to know it). But an aircraft lavatory is an aircraft lavatory. You just beat the line.
There is an in-flight entertainment system with a pop-up screen and a pair of Bose noise-canceling headphones (that are retrieved from you 30 minutes from the close of the flight). On my aged craft there was the choice of a movie on small video cassette. There were about 20 film choices.
Both coming and going I had flat-bed accommodation, but in different configurations. The newer planes have a multi-switch seat adjuster and a seat that simply reclines flat back. There is a space reservation for the seat to recline that eats up silly amounts of physical space (by coach standards). The older aircraft models have a swivel captain's chair with an ottoman that can serve to put your feet up or entertain guests seated to face you with their own seat belts (but I saw that guests from coach class are chased away within minutes so this is really a first-class-to-first-class socializing option).
The captain's chair arrangement allows you to swivel your seat to face the window where you have a desk of sorts. These configuration options are truly serviceable. Unlike coach, where rules are made to be followed, you can just about do what you want in first class, with only some gentle reminders about protocol during take off and landing. The captain's chair also configures to meet up with the ottoman to form a flat bed. It must be said that even four hours of horizontal sleep on a cross Atlantic flight makes a marked difference in how I felt on arrival. I can see the argument that employers would want their employees in these seats to enable them to hit the ground ready to work.
On my flight I didn't get to experience the special lounge afforded on some larger craft, like 747s, which is too bad because from the taste of freedom I had on my flight I expect it might be interesting and refreshing to range freely between the prison of my assigned seat and some other catered facility on the craft.
At customs in the UK (though not on the ground back at JFK) you get more premium service. A red passport wallet given to you on the plane gives you access to "Fast Track" immigrations clearance. Coming back the other direction there is a "Fast Track" window that offers itself "by invitation only." Fast track has less line, more smiles and more leeway. No need to remove your shoes for the metal detector in Fast Track (at least in my limited experience). Although my 250 milliliter bottle of Cornish scrumpy was confiscated just as surely as in ordinary security clearance (there is a 200 ml limit on liquids in carry-on luggage).
Paying thousands of dollars for these amenities may seem excessive (I managed it with accrued miles). But it is priceless to be treated in an ordinary, obliging fashion and I would not begrudge anybody trying to rescue themselves from the horrible condition of ordinary airline service. It seems sad to me that airline travel has become harshly polarized between the haves and have nots and it is the decline in the service of the have nots that is most telling. It is a difference of service, of features, but mostly it is about attitude and the basic tenor of your treatment as the customer. I wonder aloud if it really ought to require five-thousand-dollar fares to secure a consistent level of respect and understanding from airline service providers.
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