
First-class air travel is in decline - hvo
https://www.economist.com/international/2019/03/09/first-class-air-travel-is-in-decline
======
namdnay
Regarding the first class floor in Dubai, it's not _that_ empty, it's just
designed to seem spacious and quiet in order to differentiate from the crowded
business floor. But you need to keep in mind that the vast majority of
passengers there are just platinum card holders like myself, not actually
flying first class. Indeed first class is slowly dying out, I think one thing
they miss is that business class has become more and more comfortable across
nearly all airlines (especially Emirates on the 380).

One thing they don't mention is the proliferation of private terminals/lounges
for commercial flights. There's a lot of these in LHR. They have their own
security checkpoints, and you're ferried by limo straight to the plane, to
board first. So you get some of the advantages of flying private, but at a
much lower cost (still upwards of 10k a year to get a membership I believe)

~~~
dforrestwilson
Can I ask what you do and how to get into your line of work?

~~~
namdnay
Nothing special, just manager in a software dev shop that works with a lot of
airlines/airports.

As soon as your customers are abroad there is a lot of international travel
involved for the management levels of any company. Although more and more
companies are cutting back and making people fly coach :/

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If you have to fly more than a few long hauls a year, business class is
necessary to preserve your sanity.

~~~
rootusrootus
We just hired a guy who worked the last few years at HP, and they had him
traveling internationally once a week (out and back) on flights routinely 10
hours or more. And they would only pay for coach. He has a crazy number of
frequent flier miles, but damn, I wouldn't have lasted nearly that long before
finding another place to work. Even premium economy, while much better than
plain coach, is cramped and terrible when you're stuck in it for more than
half a day.

~~~
aeternus
If he flies that often, he is likely getting upgraded most of the time.
Upgrade to business is usually free, then you can use points to further
upgrade to first.

~~~
saryant
Not on international routes.

------
cletus
This isn't news.

Premium airlines (eg Qatar) have long since realized that there simply isn't
sufficient demand for first-class so their newer planes don't even have a
first class cabin. A big factor is the business class is the new first class.
To compare to flying 20+ years ago on international long haul:

\- You'd be flying on a 747

\- Economy would be slightly larger probably

\- What was then "business" is probably more akin to premium economy now with
better food

\- Business now is better than first class then but first class then probably
has more hand-holding. I mean look at a Qatar Qsuite if you want to see how
far business has come.

I heard a story when Concorde was shelved that the decision to retire the
product was:

\- Planes would need to be brought up to modern standards, which was going to
be expensive for 13 (originally 14) planes for a relatively small market.
Seriously, the interior of those planes are small; and

\- Retiring Concorde would bring passengers who would otherwise fly Concorde
to flying first-class, which at the time was much more profitable.

Not sure how close to the truth this is but I can believe it. Obviously it's
sad that we lost a capability we once had (crossing the Atlantic in <4 hours)
but I wonder if BA/AF looked at this too short term. I mean sure first-class
is (was) more profitable but then you're competing with every other airline
when supersonic was a duopoly with a barrier to entry that was practically
infinite.

~~~
hkmurakami
Was flying Business class 20 years ago. It was somewhere between premium
economy and business today. Better food, better seats than current premium
economy. No lie flats iirc. Upgrades were easier though.

A friend compared first class today to having a handler for the duration of
the trip.

------
tsunamifury
I thought business just became first and premium economy became business class
so airlines could get around blind booking restrictions against first class.

The apartment/suite class is a relatively new marketing gimmick that has
nothing to do with traditional first class.

~~~
ghaff
Premium economy isn’t really business class. The seats are the same width as
economy and you don’t get the extra level of service you get in business. Just
some extra legroom which I appreciate.

You do sometimes get meals but they’re the old standard inedible coach meals I
mostly pass on.

Added: Wasn’t aware of mostly recent premium economy additions on some
airlines. I was taking it as a synonym for Economy Plus.

~~~
wlll
BA premium economy has wider seats with more leg room as far as I can tell,
the same food as club (ie. upgraded from economy), your own arm rests and
better in flight entertainment (a larger screen).

~~~
ghaff
Ok. I usually fly United. There Economy Plus is mostly just more legroom.

~~~
saryant
That’s United’s extra leg room product which is distinct from their premium
economy product. That product is only available on long haul flights.

~~~
ryandrake
Has anyone told these airlines that these new class names are confusing
branding nightmares. Premium Economy? Economy Plus? Economy Comfort? Which
one’s better? Who knows?

Reminds me of the ol’ USB High Speed vs. USB Full Speed. I still don’t
remember which one is faster.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I had to name the speed settings on an old 802.11 radio link. Started with
1-10MBit with names like standard speed, full speed, high speed. Added mega
speed, hyper speed, ultra speed, mondo speed, maxi-speed, ludicrous speed to
get to 200MBit.

------
ghaff
The thing is that modern lie flat business class seats like United/Polaris are
already way more comfortable than first class was in the “old days.” There’s a
big win to flying business. The incremental win of flying first given that you
still need to deal with much of the same airport/commercial airline stuff is
fairly limited.

~~~
isostatic
If it's really First Class, I'd expect private terminal (or at least
entrance), straight into lounge while someone checks you in/deals with baggage
etc, personalized security at your convenience, then collect from the lounge
and private car to the plane at your convienience (between boarding and doors
close).

For Business class I'd expect the normal 'dedicated' security and checking,
lounge, and 'fast' boarding, and a flat bed but that's about it.

~~~
saryant
There are very few airports where this is the case. FRA is one of the only
airports with the setup you’re describing.

~~~
namdnay
[https://www.heathrowvip.com/](https://www.heathrowvip.com/)

~~~
Someone1234
Off-topic: That site's design could use some refinement. Took me a while to
even figure out how to get to the actual content (scrolling didn't work in
Firefox or Chrome, I had to click the little white arrow).

------
alehul
Would highly recommend the YouTube video below [0] from Wendover, which went
pretty in-depth on the economics of airline classes a while ago, and how
first-class was the least profitable for the airlines. :)

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc)

~~~
k__
Interesting. I saw a video that explained exactly the opposite.

First class pays for the flight and the rest is filled up so no space goes to
waste.

~~~
lymphadenopathy
The video states that business class is the most profitable per square foot,
and economy is only there to fill up the plane. First was in between

~~~
k__
Ah, yes okay, that's right. Then I had it wrong, sorry!

------
tomweingarten
Excellent! First class is an environmental disaster.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane-
pollutio...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane-pollution-
global-warming.html)

[http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/141851468168853188...](http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/141851468168853188/pdf/WPS6471.pdf)

~~~
owenversteeg
I'll be honest, although the environmental impact of first class is higher
than economy, I'm not sure it's really as bad as people claim.

First of all, fuel use goes down with less weight. One first class passenger
reduces weight substantially vs. a claimed 3-9 economy passengers. Secondly,
airlines don't like to fly with a lot of unused capacity, be that passenger
seats or weight capacity. Many planes carry extra cargo if there's
consistently extra weight available.

Now, then you get into economic effects: the presence of the lighter first
class passengers allows more cargo to be brought, which reduces demand, which
reduces the cargo price, which encourages more polluting air freight. But
that, of course, is far more complex to calculate.

Ultimately I'm just not satisfied with any estimate of CO2 emitted by flying
in general. Every estimate I've seen has critical flaws in it and neglects at
least one major component of flying. I completely believe that flying is
responsible for a large amount of CO2 emissions, but exactly how much I don't
think anyone knows for sure.

Has anyone here seen a decent model of CO2 output caused by flying?

~~~
barunio
> Ultimately I'm just not satisfied with any estimate of CO2 emitted by flying
> in general. > Has anyone here seen a decent model of CO2 output caused by
> flying?

The CO2 impact of flying, and of flying first-class, is understood incredibly
well and quite simple to follow for first-order effects.

First, to calculate the emissions associated with the sector as a whole, you
don't need any modeling. If you know how much of what fuel the sector as a
whole consumes, you can determine co2 emissions directly from that fact.
That's how those broader statistics are determined.

Second, losing one passenger impacts the fuel economy per person in a very
negative way. Consider an Airbus A321, which is one of the more efficient
commercial airplanes. Wikipedia states that its max takeoff weight is
93,000kg. Suppose it's configured to seat 220 people. That means 422kg of
weight being transported per person. A typical airline seat weighs 11kg and an
average adult is over 70kg. If you assume an average of 50kg per person for
luggage, each person's marginal contribution to the weight being transported
is 131kg. The rest is coming from moving the plane itself. So, if you replace
two small seats with one big one, that one seat now goes from having a share
of 422kg to (422 * 2 - 131) = 713kg. That's an increase of 69%.

Edit: I realized I'm looking at max capacity for total weight but not max
weights per passenger, which means my guess of the plane weight is overstated.
But I also didn't account for the fact that first class also requires more
flight attendants on the flight. These two things counter each other. The net
increase is likely something other than 69%, but that's not too far off.

Yes, there are other market impacts from using first class, but there's no
basis for thinking those are anywhere close to the impact described above.
(E.g., you can do the calculations for offsetting 50kg of cargo from another
plane.)

What's a little less certain is the impact of radiative forcing. CO2 emissions
are a dangerously _understated_ way to think about climate impacts of flying.
CO2e (co2 equivalent) is more relevant. When you release water vapor, NOx,
etc. into the atmosphere at higher elevations, there are all sorts of other
impacts that occur at different timescales. The IPCC recommends multiplying by
a factor of 2.7x to account for that. Other studies are a bit lower, maybe
1.9x, but there's general agreement that it's very bad. The specifics still
need to be understood a bit better.

People have incredible wishful thinking when it comes to flying because it's
so convenient. It is impossible to act responsibly towards the environment and
engage in air travel with any form of technology that exists today or that we
know of. It's hard to imagine many things more hypocritical than first-class
passengers who also claim environmental concern.

~~~
owenversteeg
> The CO2 impact of flying, and of flying first-class, is understood
> incredibly well

No, it's not! If you look at NGOs and charities, you find massively different
numbers, even for flights with the same characteristics.

I have yet to find a decent model that takes into account everything: cargo,
class, seat layouts, personal weight, etc etc. For example, Googling tells me
every extra kg of weight burns 0.2-0.7kg of fuel per flight (naturally highly
dependent on flight time, aircraft type, current weight etc etc.) If you take
3.15 g CO2/g fuel, and a 2.7x CO2e factor, that's 8.5 kg CO2e/kg fuel. So
someone weighing 136 kg (several million Americans weigh more than this [0])
will cause up to 511.7 kg CO2e more emissions than someone weighing 50 kg
will! That's more than half a ton of CO2e, and that's just in a simple body
weight difference! Throw in a checked bag and a heavier carryon and you're
well on your way to a ton of extra CO2e per person for longer flights.

The case of first class also depends strongly on airline-dependent factors:
how many economy passengers a first class seat displaces, as well as the
weight of the first class seat/bed and other things taken along to improve the
journey for first class (blankets? food? a large wine selection? additional
attendants, as you mentioned?)

It's an equation with an insane number of variables, as well as economic
effects. Example:

There's a weekly (short) flight from <island> to <mainland> that's barely
profitable, kept alive by a few passengers flying in first class. In this
case, the impact of the first class is huge! Airport fees and taxes ensure
that the profits from each additional economy passenger are low, but every
first class passenger has a very high impact on the viability of the route.

Furthermore, like you said, there's radiative forcing caused by aviation, of
which CO2 only contributes perhaps half. Contrails can contribute far more to
global warming than CO2 emissions can, for a flight, depending on the weather.
There are NOx emissions which have a cooling effect, which is based on
altitude. So a short flight in warm weather in South America will have a much
different emissions profile than a long-haul from Canada to Iceland.

I'm going to make a bold claim: the CO2e per passenger kilometer can vary by
at least one order of magnitude depending on the flight characteristics
(airline, weather, route, direction, location, aircraft, etc) - before you
take class into account!

~~~
barunio
> No, it's not! If you look at NGOs and charities, you find massively
> different numbers, even for flights with the same characteristics.

Aside from those two sentences, nothing you've written contradicts anything
I'm saying, and it's mostly orthogonal to the point.

It is obviously true that a lot of factors can affect the weight of an
airplane, and the CO2e impact of a flight will vary based on that weight. And
weight is one of many factors, as you mention at the end. But just because
something is complicated and may seem overwhelming does not mean that the
academic community engaged in researching the topic doesn't understand it.

It isn't possible to know a priori what the impact of a specific flight will
be, and it isn't practical to determine the exact ratio of impact of a first-
class to economy passenger on one specific flight. But nobody is making that
claim, since that isn't how people think about systems in any large-scale
domain like this. Instead, we look at large data sets and examine statistical
relationships.

Your comment seems to be imply that because the system is high-variance with
many variables, it is impossible to understand it in useful ways. That is
clearly not the case. If it were, we wouldn't be unable to make decisions
about virtually anything in the world outside of extremely narrow domains, and
rational policy-making would be impossible. The number of variables in this
domain is nothing compared to public health, for example. We can talk about
the effectiveness of condoms in preventing infection even though there are a
million variables affecting it with numerous outlier cases. In the same way,
we can talk about the impact of flying first-class. (In fact, we can do better
re: flying because there we have better analytical modeling in addition to the
datasets.)

You claim that one would find massively different numbers among researchers.
That hasn't been my experience as I've sought ought out detailed information
online. Here are just a few references as a starting point:

    
    
      * 2008 Union of Concerned Scientists: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/greentravel_report.pdf -- Chapter 2 is on air travel and very high-level, but Appendix B provides more detailed numbers across various parameters. It only considers CO2, not CO2e.
    
      * 2009 academic study, Oxford prof: https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/jardine09-carboninflights.pdf -- finds that on average, there's a 2x difference in per-passenger emissions between the most dense and least dense seating configurations.
    
      * 2013 World Bank study: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/141851468168853188/pdf/WPS6471.pdf -- outlines analytical models that include the different variables you're mentioning (and many more), and examines variance in the results as those parameters are adjusted.
    

The results from all of these studies are consistent across broad parameters
(in particular the impact of seating configuration). In fact, it's clear that
my back-of-the-envelope calculation of a 69% increase due to first-class is
pretty much the lower bound.

[Note, I said in my original answer that the impact of radiative forcing is
still being understood, so I'm not talking about that. I intentionally said
that CO2 impact is well understood at the start and called out CO2e as a
distinct notion for that reason.]

> I'm going to make a bold claim: the CO2e per passenger kilometer can vary by
> at least one order of magnitude depending on the flight characteristics
> (airline, weather, route, direction, location, aircraft, etc) - before you
> take class into account!

That's not a bold claim at all; it's just irrelevant. A cross-country flight
on an old plane with a couple layovers in bad weather that has to refuel
unexpectedly and is only half-full will have an order of magnitude worse
impact on the climate than the best case non-stop scenario. But if one asks,
"what is the impact of flying first-class vs economy?", one is not asking
"what is the impact of flying first-class in the best possible case vs flying
economy in the worst possible case?".

~~~
owenversteeg
>We can talk about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing infection even
though there are a million variables affecting it with numerous outlier cases.

Sure, but you're discussing something completely different from what I care
about. Nobody is forced to not wear a condom for work, and you can't buy
"condom credits" to offset not wearing a condom. The individual calculus of
flying (and whether to fly based on emissions) is completely different from
wearing or not wearing a condom.

Ultimately, I can only control my own flying and my own donations, and that's
what I'm interested in here. I think I should've been more clear: what I'm
looking for is something where I can, as a passenger, see the CO2e of my
flight. If I fly DL 259 in economy, what will be the impact of this? If I have
the option, does it make sense to replace this with (say) 3 round trip economy
flights on KL 1385? (for example, one important conference vs 3 less important
ones.) What will it cost to offset my flight?

I took a look at the 3 links you provided and I can't say I'm convinced. The
UCS one has pretty pictures, but ignores CO2e which is inexcusable as that is
where the bulk of the issue is. I don't see anything resembling an established
model from those; it seems to be simply just people gathering (mostly)
theoretical data and putting it into Excel. In particular, I am really not
convinced that anyone has a good understanding of the factors involved in CO2e
and from what I can tell the literature supports me on this.

Quoting one of your own links: different methodologies are responsible for a
factor of 2 difference in CO2e and "there is as yet no internationally agreed
and adopted methodology for the calculation of aviation emissions" (from Dr.
Jardine's report)

>>> I'm going to make a bold claim: the CO2e per passenger kilometer can vary
by at least one order of magnitude depending on the flight characteristics
(airline, weather, route, direction, location, aircraft, etc) - before you
take class into account!

>That's not a bold claim at all; it's just irrelevant.

It's absolutely a bold claim to 99% of people. Nearly everywhere, from large
newspapers to "calculator" sites to social media, people do not realize that
the emissions for a flight are very individual to that specific flight. If you
asked random travelers, I bet nearly none would expect things like seating
configuration or weather to strongly affect emissions. If you told some random
people that by choosing a densely seated plane they could strongly reduce
their emissions I bet they'd be interested!

------
Damogran6
I need to get to Point A...I am also 6'5"

Ticket: $178 (the fare that shows up on initial search) Luggage fee: $40 Taxes
and Fees: $35 Exit Row Seat which may or may not be crowded: $65 (each way)

Actual Cost: $400 (Numbers SWAG'd, but that's approx what it costs to round
trip from Denver to Baltimore)

All I want to do is take a 2 hour flight in relative comfort and the whole
thing's a bait n switch.

That doesn't include the TSA Grope, the 'no fluids pass security', $12 a day
far out distant remote parking, nor leaving the extra time to handle all of
the extra fallderal.

I can see people getting disenfranchised with the whole deal.

~~~
organsnyder
Taking the train is a much more pleasant experience. If only our train
schedules (outside of the NE corridor) didn't suck.

~~~
camelNotation
Amtrak with kids is a dream come true on long trips. So much room, so much
freedom. Our kids could literally just sit and play on the floor in front of
our seats, then we could walk them to the dining car or someplace else when
they wanted a change of scenery. We could play with them and entertain them in
a way you can't in a car or plane.

But I will never ride it again because it is so poorly managed. I needed to be
at work the next morning, but they canceled our train at the last minute
because of icy weather in New York (how have we not figured out how to solve
for coldness yet) and I had to take an extra vacation day and leave the next
morning instead. Such absolute nonsense.

~~~
Noumenon72
I can attest that airplanes also cancel flights because of icy weather. Even
interstates sometimes close for winter weather, in Wisconsin.

~~~
camelNotation
Yes, I think underlying my criticism is the important fact that trains are not
planes or cars. Trains do not slide on rubber tires the way the other two do
and are, in fact, very capable of traveling from point A to point B in
inclement weather.

------
throwaway-1283
Biggest reason I can think of is that airlines have so heavily invested in
business class over last 10 years or so to the point where business is nearly
as good as first class has been at a fraction of the price.

I've had the privilege of flying international first and business class
flights several times over past few years using points (including Singapore
Suites), and business class has gotten so good (lie flat reverse herringbone
configuration) that there's hardly a difference between the two except a
slightly bigger seat and marginally better food but 3x the price.

We are living in the golden age of business class travel.

~~~
metanoia
>We are living in the golden age of business class travel.

I've had the privilege of flying 300k+ miles in Emirates over the last 2
years, mostly in business, and including a few first class segments through
upgrades and I can also say that there is not much difference between business
and first other than individualized service and better wine/spirits.

As another poster has mentioned Premium Economy is where business was about
15-20 years ago - and the PE segment is growing significantly in the airline
business as they try to capture revenue in the "comfort gap" segment between
economy and business.

As this segment grows, and becomes more attractive to accountants, during the
next economic contraction I expect that there will be a lot of corporate
travel policies that will push travelers down into PE, so let's enjoy it while
we can.

~~~
throwaway-1283
Yes, by "golden age" I'm referring to the fact that "business class" has
transitioned from angled lie-flat big economy seats to a mini first class.

------
JabavuAdams
Flying private has always been one of my bucket list items, but the fact that
flying US coast-to-coast private has the same carbon footprint as 10k
Americans(!) use per year is kind of appalling. There's a certain level of FU
that's hard to rationalize.

~~~
mikeash
There’s no way that number is correct. A 737 carries not quite 7,000 gallons
of fuel, so that would imply the average American has a carbon footprint of
0.7 gallons of jet fuel per year, _if_ you used the full capacity of a 737 to
fly coast to coast. A 737 doesn’t fully drain its tanks on that trip, and
smaller jets will use less.

~~~
base698
He said private. So 1-4 people at 400 gallons per hour.

~~~
gok
That makes even less sense. Even if it's one person flying for 6 hours, 2400
gallons of burned kerosene is several orders of magnitude less GHG emissions
than 10,000 Americans in a year.

Edit: To put numbers on it, each American emits 16,500 kg of CO2 per year,
2400 gallons of jet fuel emits 21,360 kg of CO2. So it's more like _one_
American's emissions in a year.

~~~
24gttghh
>So it's more like one American's emissions in a year.

That _still_ seems horrible to me.

~~~
gok
I mean... it's not great. But it's only a few hundred dollars worth of carbon
offsets, which is considerably less than the existing tax on the jet fuel.

~~~
24gttghh
And that's only one way eh? Do 1 round-trip private trip a month and suddenly
that's 24-people's worth of yearly emissions.

------
Kiro
Wait, business class and first class aren't the same? Never seen a plane with
three classes.

~~~
rrdharan
Correct, they aren't the same, but usually only larger airplanes (747-400,
A380 etc.) have a first class and only for very long haul (> 12 hour?)
flights.

See e.g. [https://onemileatatime.com/emirates-a380-first-class-vs-
busi...](https://onemileatatime.com/emirates-a380-first-class-vs-business-
class/)

~~~
phonebanshee
British Airways have first class on the LHR/SEA route, ten and a half hours.

~~~
darrenf
They also used to have first class on a daily 747 between London and Moscow,
around 4 hours. (I'm not sure if they still do, but they did in 2014 and 2015
because I flew it both years!). Not to mention the cash cow East Coast USA
destinations or upmarket bucket and spade Caribbean flights, none of which are
12hrs.

------
_ph_
As the article mentions, business class today often offers a comfort which was
not long ago not even available in first class. Which also unfortuantely means
that business class becomes less and less accessible for business travellers
as companies are watching "costs" for most but upper management.

------
drallison
I fly first-class only when upgraded or flying on miles. It's priced itself
out of the market.

I fly business-class only for long hauls, especially if the airfare is covered
and if I am supposed to be wide-awake a cogent the day following the trip. I
usually specify contractually that flights longer than four hours are to be
business-class or better.

I usually prefer the premium-economy seating because it is, for me, much more
comfortable than the business-class seats. A recent premium-economy
transcontinental trip on an Air France A380 was, without question, the very
best ever.

Recent business-class seats have, for me, much in common with the rack, a mid-
evil torture instrument; the design is such that there is no way to get
physically comfortable since lying on my back is not an option.

~~~
ghaff
I find lie flat seats huge wins for overnight flights. I certainly don’t
dislike them for travel during the day when I’m awake but I don’t find them a
huge win over traditional domestic business class/premium economy either.

------
sbayeta
_A new breed of supersonic executive jets will be even more polluting. The
International Council on Clean Transportation, a think-tank, estimates that
their emissions will be five to seven times greater than for standard jets.
Boom, one of the startups hoping to produce these jets, has forecast that up
to 2,000 such supersonic aircraft will be built by 2035._

They should make these guys go carbon neutral by installing CO2 scrubbers or
similar for every plane they sell. There's no reason we all have to suffer the
consequences of the super rich wasteful behaviour.

~~~
mruts
Maybe we should make your car go carbon neutral?

The percent of CO2 emissions from private jets is <1% in the US. Democracy
shouldn’t be two wolves and a sheep deciding whats for dinner.

~~~
eesmith
Well, yes. We should make your (and my and our) cars go carbon neutral.

After all, and using you metaphor, these are the same wolves that said the
sheep's car needed a catalytic converter ... and improved safety equipment.

------
DIVx0
My corp sends me out to conferences or remote offices several times a year,
sometimes internationally. I can book business class if total in-air time is
greater than six hours.

I know first class still exists but every time I fly biz class, that cabin is
the ultimate premium cabin for the flight. There might be premium economy or
whatever but biz class is functionally first class for the airlines and routes
I typically fly (Delta, Air France)

As an aside, the new Delta One suites are _amazing_ and have totally ruined
even "regular" business class lay-flat seats for me.

------
kenneth
I think economic forces are party to blame for this. Business class has gotten
so much cheaper and better these days that it's hard to justify paying for
first. The amount of competition among airlines trying to outdo each other in
the quality of business class has led to really high quality products and low
fares.

As a result, airlines are struggling to sell first. First cabins are regularly
half empty. I've had many flights where I'm the only passenger in the first
cabin, or with every guest having a separate seat for lounging and sleeping
given low load factors.

A decade ago, business class wasn't so good, with angle-flat or recliner
seats. Even when the seats were lie-flat, they were seldom private and with
direct aisle access. It wasn't a comfortable experience, so for those who
could, going first made sense.

This has led many airlines to reduce first class, or ditch it entirely.
Singapore's first class product went from 8 seats to 4. United killed its
GlobalFirst product entirely. American hardly has any routes. Malaysian is
ditching first. In the western hemisphere, the only airlines with a real first
class product left are Swiss, Lufthansa, and Air France. British and American
also offer first, though have a poor non-competitive product.

Asia and the middle east is the only place left where first class is alive and
strong. (The lands of the nouveau riche)

------
crushcrashcrush
Anyone who's flown business or even Premium Economy on long-haul flights knows
that this isn't surprising.

Even Premium Economy on Lufthansa is basically what Business Class used to be
- wider, bigger seats, no shared armrests, power ports, a large TV, unlimited
drinks, food served on real plates with real knives and forks. You do need to
share a lav with Economy, though. You even get a kit of an eye mask and other
goodies.

~~~
chihuahua
I agree, Premium Economy on Lufthansa is very nice. There is enough room even
for me at 6'5" 195cm. Any more than this would feel like a waste of money. If
I want fancy food, I'll pay $100 in a restaurant, not $4000 extra for a
flight.

~~~
jashmatthews
PE on AirNZ is much better than on Lufthansa, but it’s also more expensive.

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gumby
A data point on the luxury level of Business: I once saw the Dalai Lama while
boarding a flight to India. He was seated in Business, not First.

~~~
madcaptenor
But would you necessarily expect the Dalai Lama to fly the most luxurious
product? Seems out of line with his image.

~~~
occamrazor
I’d expect first class only for security concerns.

~~~
Sargos
I'd expect an airline is one of the safest place you could sit regardless of
which section you're in.

------
GreaterFool
First class is probably all nice and cool but given how comfortable business
is, I couldn't care less about any fancier service. Just give me flat bed on
13h flight so I can sleep! Bigger screen? Don't care. Fancier food? Don't
care.

That said, I'd love to one day fly the first class where they have a bar.
Would be cool to sip cocktails and chat with fellow travelers!

~~~
namdnay
Don’t need to fly first for that! Business on Emirates a380 will suffice :)

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ratling
TBH I think the airlines kinda fucked themselves on this one.

The whole meme was to make people walk through first class so that they would
see what they're missing. Problem is, most people are doing domestic hops and
in most cases they just aren't missing that much (I regularly do a 2 hop 40
minute then 1 hour flight that doesn't even finish drink service by the time
you're ready to land).

International sure and I'm sure the airlines make sure they make bank on those
flights. But if I'm going to take maybe 1 international round trip every
couple of years I'm probably not going to spring for first class if I can
instead put that money into whatever I'm doing where I'm going.

------
crowdpleaser
First-class air travel in American is in decline because American corporations
can deduct business class airfare more easily than first class airfare.

IIRC, the only domestic airline in America with first-class is American
Airlines. The other legacy carriers have gotten rid of it, premium economy is
one of the fastest growing classes of air fare.

------
neonate
[https://outline.com/mqZDVV](https://outline.com/mqZDVV)

------
rdl
It's still pretty rare to have a private jet which can do transpacific flights
-- particularly since it's usually to/from specific gateway cities, too. CX,
SQ, JL, QR, EK F is more comfortable than a fractional-ownership G650 and
costs about 10% as much.

------
Geekette
Not surprised to read this. Glad to see a post outlining why 1st class travel
isn't as profitable as it seems, including how even Emirates, which sells the
most 1st class seats notes that 1st and business-class constitute ~40% of its
turnover - a significant but not majority portion. On a previous discussion,
some were skeptical when I'd mentioned how the bulk of total airline sales and
profit comes from economy, despite the higher average margin for business/1st
class tickets[1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18358650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18358650)

------
sandworm101
So if first class is empty, and economy class is packed, who is paying for the
flight? If 1/3 of the aircraft is dedicated to first class, are they paying
1/3 of the total cost? If not, aren't economy-class passengers effectively
subsidizing first class?

On individual flights this no doubt happens, one class being full the other
empty[1]. But if first-class travel is down across the board, and prices are
not adjusted accordingly, we might be in a situation where the poor are indeed
subsidizing the rich.

[1] Let's not kid ourselves. Economy cabins are _always_ packed.

~~~
learc83
The article opens talking about first class to Dubai, which is an entirely
different animal.

If you look at a United 777 [1], they don't even have a first class and
nowhere near a third of the aircraft is "Polaris business class". Most
domestic flights are like this, business class (or premium class or whatever
they call the upgrade from economy plus) is usually full too because they bump
people, people use miles to upgrade, or they offer cheap last minute upgrades.

1\.
[https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...](https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Airlines_Boeing_777-200_9.php)

~~~
chrisbolt
Look at other United 777s and you’ll see more Polaris seats:
[https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...](https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Airlines_Boeing_777-300ER.php)

------
ryanSrich
One of the problems I see with first class is the overpricing. As a frequent
domestic flyer (~once per month) it's almost impossible to get enough
points/credit to make it affordable. I'd even personally pay for a first class
upgrade on a business flight if it wasn't $300+. A delta flight from Seattle
or Portland to NY is roughly $450 depending on when you book. To then charge
$300 for first class seems wrong.

~~~
glup
United always asks after I book a $200-$300 cross-country flight whether I
want to upgrade to business class for another $800. While I admire their
enthusiasm, somehow I always click "no."

~~~
Marsymars
Last time I flew with United was to Tokyo from North America on a ~$500 round-
trip flight. Inquired about first-class, and it was going to be an additional
$10k.

------
sgjohnson
Because First class is just overpriced business class on most airlines. I fly
Business and First all the time with churned miles. First tends to offer more
privacy, but if I had to, I wouldn’t mind paying cash for Business. I’d never
pay cash for First.

------
MrTonyD
I spoke to a manager at a major airline - he told me that their research told
them that many of their first class passengers are now renting private jets
instead. Just another artifact of our "winner takes all" economic systems.

------
peterkshultz
Highly recommend "Hard Landing" by Thomas Petzinger Jr. if you're interested
in this sort of subject.

Unit economics for commercial aviation have changed substantially since the
industry's inception.

------
throwaway5752
People that would have done that decades ago have private jets now, and it's a
terrible deal for the amenities offered in almost every other case.

------
xxpor
If it keeps more availability open for award flights, that's fine with me!

------
wgerard
TLDR; First-class is disappearing in favor of business-class (which is good
enough for many of the previous first-class fliers) or private flights (which
are becoming more affordable).

~~~
chaseha
*First class is in decline, rather. Don't think it will ever disappear, mostly for the first reason the article says - the upgrade chance as a carrot to keep business traveler loyalty

