Last summer I flew Business Class on four flights. The first flight was Delta from Schiphol to Seattle. The second was United Airlines from Phoenix to Washington DC. The third was KLM from DC to Schiphol. The fourth was from Schiphol to Aberdeen. (For some reason BC wasn’t available on the flight out). The service I got from KLM was head and shoulders above that I got from Delta. As for United Airlines, do I really need to elaborate? Suffice to say it was dire. I got better service flying cattle class on Alaska Airlines. They didn’t even allow me to use their lounge at the airport - sorry, international passengers only. The service I received from KLM was on a par with Qatar Airways BC the year before.
Why is this? Is there a corporate culture of mediocrity? Is it a case of, “We have exclusive rights, so fuck you?” (q.v. ISPs). Too much cost-cutting? Or what?
Because it can be. It’s not like people aren’t going to fly; they’re going to take the cheap seats and gripe, but they’re still going to pay it. Why should they give people a better product for the same price when every single seat on every single plane is filled at takeoff?
Are you sure the United flight was in business class? That wouldn’t normally be possible on that route. You may have been in domestic first class, which sounds like it’s more than business class but is not.
You get to board before most of the other passengers and sit further up in the cabin.
You sit in a slightly more comfortable seat.
Clearly those benefits are more important in a transcontinental or transoceanic flight than on an average U.S. flight (let’s say, Chicago to Atlanta) so the vast majority of travelers here don’t care.
Business class in a transpacific flight is an enormous step up in comfort, as I can attest. Here’s the seat map of a Qantas A380. The business class seats are little pods, 2-2-2. You can lie down flat. Economy seats are…seats. 3-4-3. There’s a limited amount of recline, and I can testify that sleep in those seats is spotty, at best. On a 12-15 hour flight, that makes a big difference. Here’s a Qantas 737-800, used on domestic routes. There’s a few business class seats, 2-2, and the economy seats are 3-3.
Maybe after several transpacific flights, I’m more tolerant. I feel like I could do a domestic flight (5-6 hours at most) standing on my head. But boy, upgrading to the business class my last flight back from DFW to Sydney felt like heaven.
In sum, put me down as one of those people who doesn’t care on domestic, and would never spend the extra money or points on business class on such routes.
Your summary is somewhat true for domestic flights, but I would add that the service is improved as well. (Which is far more noticeable on a 5 hour domestic flight than a 90 minute one.)
International business class is a completely different animal. The seats are amazing and usually lie flat. 27” TVs. Service is far better. Extensive leg room. Access to lounges, which in some international airports can be very nice.
Oh and by the way - I truly don’t mean this as a “we told you so” sort of thing - the non-specialness of domestic premium classes is why several folks were trying to steer you toward premium economy.
Premium economy gets you a decent legroom upgrade from basic economy, at a much more affordable cost than business class. Of course you mentioned you were a bigger guy, so maybe the even bigger business class seat was what you needed, but I agree that those seats are not a good value overall.
I think this is where a website like SeatGuru.com can be extremely helpful. For any airline and all the equipment they use, you can find out the width and pitch (legroom) of the seats. There’s a surprising amount of variation within a single airline across the different aircraft they fly, and you shouldn’t be surprised if seating in a narrow body jet is more spacious than the same class in a wide body jet with the same airline. Or I’m sure the reverse is also possible.
In domestic (American) first class you get some extra perks and the seats are appreciably wider, but there may not be a great deal more pitch. The extra legroom may be so limited that I’m not sure how business class, as a specific service, could be positioned between economy and first. Not that they don’t do it anyway.
Another good source of information is YouTube. By now, for just about any popular route and airline, somebody has probably done flight reviews for all the different aircraft used on that route, at least for first and business classes if not all three.
Finally, I can well imagine that Alaska Airlines has high standards; they have now merged with Virgin America which has similar standards. I’d be surprised if Virgin Atlantic isn’t similar in that regard.
Well of course if you travel domestically within the US, as in your flight from Phoenix to Washington, you’ll have to travel via an American airline. Foreign airlines aren’t allowed to carry domestic passengers in the US.
What were the prices of the different flights? Is there any hope of learning this data?
Lots of bitching about flying is people complaining that they got what they paid for. Flying need not be glamorous, some people just want a flying bus to go from A to B. If you’re not among them and want extras like lounge access, pay for an upgrade. If that option isn’t offered at all then apparently not enough people are willing to pay for it for the airline to make that an option or the airline is failing to increase its profits by offering it as an extra.
Is this because you’re a big person, and a smaller seat would have been even more uncomfortable? Or are you saying this because the service was not acceptable, and you don’t want to further downgrade?
There are lots of options for international flights to the US on every carrier you can imagine, but all domestic flights are US airlines. For example, you can’t fly Qatar Airlines from New York to San Francisco without a stop in Doha. (ETA: oops, missed suranyi’s post. Apologies.)
Business class on Qantas domestic B737 has the following:
Significantly more leg room and recline.
Damp towel to refresh one’s self.
Complimentary alcohol including a drink while boarding.
Better food.
Access to the airport lounge (which also has free alcohol and food).
Priority check-in.
Priority boarding.
At some airports, priority security processing.
It’s good on flights over about two hours and if you have a bit of time between connections.
I don’t know how the above compares with the OP’s expectations.
On an international flight, it’s usually not just a slightly more comfortable seat, but an amazingly more comfortable seat. Depending on the airline, it might be a seat that completely reclines into a bed.