Echo J

Two teenage girls walking past CE on boarding sometime last year:

1: "Oh, that's business? What's the difference?"
2: "You get blue cloth on your headrest"
1: "Haha, I wonder why they pay for that"

Petrus

Although I agree the merits of CE are diminishing people pay for CE:

Because they can' would be my favourite tounge in cheek response
Because they are on a CW/F feeder.
Because they are on business.

Or because they are helpless FT'ers on a TP run

LTN Phobia

And because they are antisocial gits like me who do not like having someone right next to them.

heartybob

Although at LGW IIRC the announcement is something along the lines of "We now invite elderly passengers and those travelling with children to board now - we also invite our Gold and Silver card holders to board at this time".

But a word of warning - if you're boarding the LGW-PRN at the start of any school holiday then my advice is to stay firmly seated else you're in danger of being trampled in the stampede - you are likely to be one of the half-a-dozen or so who are still sitting

Or better still, do as I do and stay in the lounge until the last minute.

xenole

Thought that myself many a time.
Knowing I've paid say £xxx for my 45-60 min flight and someone 2 seats in front getting an extra drink has probably paid 3-4x that (from looking at online pricing).

Even on trains I've haven't seen a lot of difference.
Got a cheap first advance ticket from Sheffield to St Pancras in January for £9 compared to £5 for standard (lot better value than the comparison of flying business over standard £150 vs £450 - KLM from Humberside to Amsterdam).
Slightly bigger and sliding seats, coffee, water and a snack bar offered and they would bring food from the buffet car for you. Handful of people in the carriage but for the sake of a perhaps 300% markup, not worth it.

phlashba

THAT'S the one!

TheFlyingFoodie

The only times we've flown CE was as a part of an F trip.

The more comical stampede is getting off the flight, especially if it is a flight that is met by a bus to take you to the terminal (I seem to recall this at MXP from a few years ago). As soon as the seat belt sign was off there was a mad rush of passengers from the back to get off, literally knocking us back into our row. On that flight we had our 18 month old son in a car seat (one supposedly designed for aircraft travel as well) and we had some difficulty getting it unlatched. We ended up being the last ones off the aircraft even though we were in CE (the only ones). Much to our amazement, we were also the last ones on the bus, but first ones off We had a good laugh at that.

Teefaf

Three teenage girls boarding at SFO last month, on coming to a split in the airbridge read the sign that pointed the way to 'WorldTraveller/WorldTraveller+" as indicating the premium cabins and started down the bridge signed "FIRST/ClubWorld", while laughing at the poncy name they thought had been given to business class. Until one of them read the sign properly and actually realised that WorldTraveller was for them.

(I then continued down the bridge for ClubWorld. Thank you, Mr Employer )

origin

The little bit of extra room, is worth it.

BA5211A

In 2006 I paid full price for CE LHR - AMS vv. I flew SEA - AMS on NW World Business Class (service/food equal to or better than CW). I'd had my only crap experience on BA returning LHR - SEA March 2001 in WT & vowed never ever would I fly economy again. & I've kept to it!

Feb. '09 I fly LCY - AMS in CE & it was part of the miles/UG I used. I also wanted to fly the Avro. & I'm quite glad I did. Where was I? Did I sing the ballad yet? Oh yeah... I PAID something like $600.00 USD to fly CE in '06. I just can't imagine ever flying economy again. So, I guess I'm admitting that I'd pay full fare again. Nobody needs to say the words THINK YANK! It's been said to me before.

I actually have economy class dreams where I'm flying & I'm in economy & I start freaking out. Enuf sed...

Palmer

- sorry, couldn't resist.

Palmer

LTN Phobia

If easyJet does go assigned seating, they'll probably have LESS stampede than on BA to board if they kept the priority boarding!

Worthing Scottish

I thought that was a done deal now, as they've done the sums (a la Flybe, BA etc) and figured there's more to be earned by charging people to pick their seats than there is in selling a max of 20 speeding boarding passes per flight, many of which turn out to be useless as you're still stuck in the queue to get into the boarding gate in the first place!!!