Best transatlantic premium economy?
 

Looking at the JV airlines with a premium economy offering across the Atlantic, those are:

• Air Canada
• Austrian
• Brussels Airlines
• Lufthansa
• United

Do their premium economy product differ much in terms of seat and in-flight service? Is one better than the rest or is there one that should be avoided?

I have only flown PE on two of these: United and LH. Out of these, I definitely prefer LH, due to a much better hard product. I actively avoid the United PE, despite it usually being cheaper than LH. SAS also has a good TATL PE product and they are happy to upgrade *G. (I got upgraded on 3/6 longhaul flights.)

You forgot LO. You actually get the J meal, and seating is 2-3-2. Only thing that lacks is the IFE.

You also forgot AC - the worst PE product amongst the Star TATL options.

I particularly dislike UA because the cabin does not have it's own lav. You still have to go back to normal economy for the toilet and on some planes that can be quite far. (763 has to be the most thoughtless design in the aviation world).

Thanks for your comments so far! AC added. Skipped LO as I'm curious of the best joint venture airlines. LO, SK & SQ have premium economy but also their own pricing, whereas the others typically file their fares together.

I think I get your intended point, but are you saying that if LO, SK, or SQ posted a more competitive fare you'd dismiss it because it's not part of the JV bundled fare filing? (assuming you mean that you feel the JV prices are always lower, but that's certainly not the case)

Now we're getting off-topic here. The reason I'm asking for JV airlines only is that since that mostly file the same fare, as a traveller you have the choice between only those at the same fare. This is also the case at the route I'm looking at currently.

I suggest a mod delete this and yours message as they don't belong to this thread.

That's certainly one of the more ridiculous mod requests I'm sure they get. Mine was a very valid point. The JV fares are not necessarily the cheapest all the time, the fact that they file together is irrelevant. That only means that they will be the same price, it does not mean that SK, SQ, LO, etc. can't come in and beat their price as soon as they file it.. (it happens all the time and SQ especially runs very aggressive pricing in premium cabins on 5th freedom routes quite frequently).


And sorry, it's quite far from being off-topic. Look at your own thread title, it says Best transatlantic premium economy? I'm not the first one in the thread to point out that solely looking at JV carriers is flawed in your comparison.

So, would you rather fly UA Premium Plus than SK, SQ, or LO just because it's a JV carrier even though the new premium economy product on UA completely sucks? Totally ignoring the fact that in many markets SK or LO many be hundreds of dollars cheaper than any of the JV carriers for a product superior to UA?