90% of the time I have travelled first class/business class has been when I was travelling for work, the other 10% was/has been with my parents, sod it I am not spending that much money.
IMO, thats the model, which explains the massive price differential, the people flying it are mostly travelling on company’s or client’s dime and the First Class ticket is a perk. They fly economy for personal stuff.
Has anyone done a survey on how many First and Business class types are flying on “official” or work related matters?
You’d also have to factor in upgrades. My SO flies only Delta and is a Platinum member. 95% of his flights are business related and paid for by his company for coach seats. However, he gets free upgrades to first/business more than half of the time.
I don’t have a factual answer, but all my business class travel has been company travel (>6h = business class). Not really a perk, but if you jam me into a 11 hour flight to S. America coach, I am going to do anything I can to avoid going. Let me go business, and it’s not so bad.
But my experience (anecdotal) is that nearly everyone there is traveling for business. I don’t stay on one airline enough to really acquire the miles, so I don’t usually get upgraded.
The companies I worked for had strict policies about first/business class vs. coach. However, I was always allowed to use my frequent flyer points to upgrade, as long as the $ price of the ticket remained the same.
Concorde was retired because of the general decline in air travel after 9/11, not because its particular passenger base was killed.
Quora has some good info on why Concorde was retired (limited flight routes, outdated equipment, overall economics). From what I can see, the earlier crash played a much bigger role in ending the reign of the Concorde than did 9/11.
If you just looked at international flights that would do away with the upgrade factor and most airlines will not upgrade people on international flights, they’d rather those seats sit empty.
I’ve only paid for business or first class when traveling for business.
Beyond the ‘it’s not your money factor’ businesses specifically pay for better seating for their employees because they want their employees to have the best chance of arriving rested and ready to perform their job.
If your sending an employee across the country to hammer out a multi-million dollar deal it’s well worth the extra money for first class to ensure they don’t fuck it up because they are grumpy from being cramped in couch for 8 hours. Often you’re meeting your client or counterpart at the airport. Another way this is handled is by flying in the employee a day ahead of time, then it’s still a matter of math calculating lost time at their home location and cost of paying for hotel and expenses another day.
I’ve never seen polling on first class passengers, but I’d expect a very high percentage are traveling for business. My guess would be 80-90%
While the death of those people might have been a contributing factor, i don’t find his explanation especially convincing, and i certainly don’t buy your suggestion that 9/11 was the reason for cancelling the Concorde.
The same NOVA program you linked to tells us that, from the early days of the service:
For much of its life, it was kept afloat by public subsidies, and i think Robert McNamara got it right when he talked about American efforts to build a supersonic transport plane:
The Concorde could carry over 100 people at a time, and right up until its cancellation both Air France and British Airways had daily return flights to New York. That’s over 700 seats per week making the return trip from London, and another 700 from Paris. While the deaths of those 40 regular passengers no doubt contributed to the money problems of the Concorde, its economic woes were far more deep-seated. And, as this BBC story notes, keeping the aging planes in service was going to require an “intensified maintenance program,” which would have cost even more money.
Something that also isn’t mentioned in those stories, but which would have eaten into Concorde’s market, is the rise of private jet use, especially with the growth of jet rental and fractional ownership companies. Henry Kissinger talks in the documentary about having no privacy on the Concorde, and for many really rich people, the attraction of flying in your own corporate jet—with no crowds, and no set departure time, and lots of space—probably outweighs the convenience of a few hours shorter flying time.
As a very anecdotal contribution: A few years ago, I flew business on a business trip from Frankfurt to New York. Business class was overbooked, whereas there were still seats available in coach. So rather than leave a business passenger behind (and annoy them, and have to pay them compensation), they made an announcement at the gate saying that they were looking for a business class passenger who was willing to be voluntarily downgraded to coach; they’d pay €1600 to that person, which I guess is slightly more than the difference between business and coach one-way. Within seconds, they found a volunteer and resolved the issue.
I find it very likely to assume that that person must have been flying at company expenses; there’s no point in booking business class with your own money for the added comfort and then letting yourself be downgraded to reap some easy cash. I presume the person was on a business trip, never told their company accountants about it, and pocketed the money themselves. Whether that was legal for the person involved is something that, I guess, the airline didn’t bother too much about. Conclusion? Not only are most people who fly business in fact on business trips (not all of them, though - on that same flight, I was sitting next to a lady who was, in fact, flying business with her own money), but some people are actually willing to fly coach rather than business if it includes an opportunity to cheat extra money out of their employer.
As a private traveller I never fly any significant distance cattle class when business class seats are available. I’m simply too tall. I pay for business class seats because I want to be comfortable. Granted such travel is rare for me, but why stint?
It probably depends a great deal on the route as well. The few times I have travelled business internationally I would have said about half the passengers were reasonably wealthy retirerees. Others have been clear just plain wealthy. But is was interesting just how many older travellers - clearly travelling for pleasure were travelling business. These observations were on popular long haul (ie Oz to the UK) routes.
I travel business class when I go overseas, even for holidays, because pretty much anywhere is a long-haul flight from Australia. In my experience, when I’ve chatted with fellow passengers, the majority are travelling for pleasure, not work.
I don’t know about other airlines, but I’ve gotten upgrades to business on Delta a lot when flying internationally (Platinum at the time). Mexico City to Detroit each way, and Shanghai-Detroit on two occasions (one of these, believe it or not, was only while Gold!).
Unfortunately although I fly on Delta partners often, the flights are too short to accumulate miles and now I’m a worthless Silver. Well, at least here it’s still good enough for Group 1 boarding.
On the other hand, flying is so cheap in China that I often actually pay with my own money to fly business. Yeah, flying is so cheap because Chinese are so short all of the seats are too close together and I usually can’t fit my long legs into my designated space.
And what percentage of the business travelers are actually really going to do business? Most I guess, but Medical Conferences are notorious for attendees who ditch the conference papers in the airport and just go do something else.
My wife just flew to Delhi (for work) with United. The total cost of her business class return flights from Orlando to Newark and from Newark to Delhi was a hair under $10,000. She looked it up last night and it would have cost $1,500 to make the same flights in economy with a week’s notice (her actual flights were booked eight months in advance.)
IME, flying from Orlando to London (Gatwick) on Virgin or BA usually costs about 4.5 times more in business class (when Dad’s paying) than for economy (when I’m paying.)
The differential is much smaller on US domestic flights, but then the business class cabins on US flights are much less pleasant (when they’re available at all.)
Yeah, domestic business class versus international business class on a top tier carrier is just not even vaguely comparable. Domestic and you get a bit more leg room and a wider seat - plus slightly better food. International business class you get a seat that folds flat into a bed. International first class - try Emirates and you get a private cabin with a bed. (OK it is tiny, but quite real.) The price however is stratospheric. (boom boom)
The only (two) times I’ve flown business class was on international flights, and both times we were bumped up from economy class to business class for no charge, no frequent flier miles, just by being one of the first ones to check in for the flight. The ticketing agent, after giving us our boarding passes, laughed when she saw that our round-trip ticket from Chicago to Rome had cost us only $258 all fees included.
This was a personal vacation trip in 2005. Not sure if that’ll ever happen again.