The front cabin on transatlantic routes is termed "Envoy" class. It is sold as C (business). It certainly is not an "upgrade" product as US F is; in fact there are very few ways to upgrade to Envoy. Having said that, I would say it does lag behind most of the majors, but not by much. One of the reasons is that the older 767-200's are configured 2x2x2; the Airbuses are much better seat-wise, and in fact have one row of horizontal lie-flat seats that used to be the First cabin and is now sold as Envoy.

Service is quite good with pre-departure sparkling wine, amenity kits, decent food, self-serve snacking/wine station during flight, etc. The Envoy lounge in PHL is very stunning: because of the view, the space available in the lounge, etc. There are pre departure snacks (deli platters) and serve your own beverages available.

However, based on what I've heard about AC, I would think that the service in Envoy, although perhaps a notch below, is certainly more consistent. Nearly all crews that I have encountered in Envoy genuinely seem to appreciate that Envoy pax ARE their best customers and do treat them that way. Typical service would be having the in charge go around to each of the paxs near the end of the flight, personally acknowledge them by status, thank them for flying and provide connecting gate information.

At US there used to be little staff recognition chits that Preferreds could fill in and send to US to acknowledge any staff member that made an impression on them. I used the vast majority of them on FAs crewing the Envoy cabins.