"beating the syste" tip #35: synopsis of passenger classes
 

(no tip #34 as two tips are listed under #33)

first class: characterized by wide seats, elevated leg rests, deep reclining backs, gourmet food served on china with silverware and a table cloth, and ever-present, personal service from the flight attendants. This class is popular primarily by wealthy Arabs, frequent-flier-upgrades and off-duty airline employees flying free.

business class: in the early days of flying there were only first and economy. With deregulation, however, airline fares began to plummet and many of those people who used to travel by bus began to show up on airplanes. Business class was created as a kind of expensive economy class in which the primary benefit was not that there were free drinks, better earphones and slightly more room but rather that the loud-mouth drunks, mothers with squalling babies and teenagers with blaring ghetto-blasters wouldn't be able to afford the fare.

economy class: to describe this class as a snake is perhaps going too far. It is merely the mass class - the class in which all things have been reduced to a lowest common denominator: the seating, the service, the food, the earphone entertainement system, the toilets, the ... Yeah. It's a snake pit.

super economy class: In this class all that passengers get is a seat. No food service, no drinks service, no earphone entertainement system. Surprising as it may seem, the airlines don't charge more for this class than they do for ordinary economy. They apparently don't realize that the attraction of the food, drink and entertainment in ordinary economy class are such that most people would willingly pay to avoid them.

(from The Airline Passenger's Guerilla Handbook, Strategic & Tactics for Beating the Air Travel System, ISBN 0-924022-04-3, 1989m published by The Blakes Publishing Group, 320 Metropolitan Square, 655 Fifteenth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20005; sold-out).

Thanks for posting this Rudi.

"Super Economy" may mean a different product, especially in four-class 747s.

For example, the Economy Deluxe seats in EVA Airline is somewhat better than US domestic business class (UA).

Ken- Having not seen this before when it was first posted, it was surprising to see and interesting to recall upon reading that you did not agree with me at all and seemed to object quite vigourously when I noted that, in my opinion, the overall treatment/ experience in Economy class on SQ and some other Asian/European carriers was certainly equal to, or even superior to the front cabin on most US carriers, neglecting seat size and pitch. Perhaps we are not as far apart in our thinking as it appeared from that post. In any case I too think EVA is/was quite good!

The mothers with screaming babies have begun to infiltrate business class. It's happening more and more, most recently we had a mother with 3 little ones all under the age of 5 sitting behind us in business from SYD to LAX on Qantas. One of the little tykes kept kicking the back of my seat until I got up and spoke with the mother, who seemed totally out of it and exhausted (and it's no wonder). So it looks as though The Airline Passenger's Guerilla Handbook, Strategies &
Tactics for Beating the Air Travel System needs to revise their description of business class.

You tell him, Nanook...Screaming kids in the front of the plane and no Mace to defend myself with.

Mark:

How can you compare using the term "overal treatment/experience" but while "neglecting seat size and pitch"? Isn't the seat, along with service, food/wine, amenities, all part of the overall experience? Taking one out you no longer have an "overall experience."

Second, I have been on several Asian airline's economy seats (although not in SQ) and I still maintain that the overall experience is still not as good as domestic US first class.

You are trying to equate economy deluxe to economy and I do not think that is a fair comparison.

No big issue here and certainly no problem Ken. Your last sentence in the prior post somewhat surprised me. I realize it is just an unusal and an admittedly not widely held opinion on my part. We agree the seats clearly can't be compared. Excepting that, I feel somewhat that most Asian carriers offer a kind of "Economy Plus" while many US carriers on many routes offer a kind of First Class Minus! The overall quality, as was pointed out varies depending on many factors including lenth of travel etc and especially competition.