The success of premium economy class: this is how airlines gentrify the sky

Have you heard of tourist class syndrome?

It is well documented that, on long flights and conditions of forced immobility in confined spaces, one in every thousand passengers on commercial flights suffers symptoms of deep vein thrombosis, a potentially serious condition.

To combat it, airlines began to offer, in the first decade of our century, additional space between seats, 15 to 30 extra centimeters, the difference between claustrophobic narrowness and complete comfort for anyone willing to pay a little more. of money.

You have read well.

Not a little more space for everyone by medical prescription, but a discretionary improvement in the health conditions of the flight for a new high-flying middle class, those who could not (or did not want) to buy a ticket in

business

or first class, but Yes, a slightly higher rate to get rid of the constraints of

economy.

Today we know that this commercial maneuver of dubious morality was the embryo of the premium economy class, increasingly popular after the rigors of the pandemic.

Mac Schwerin warned of this phenomenon in an incisive article in The

Atlantic magazine.

In it, Schwerin stated: “Most of us find it especially annoying to be confined to that hell of mediocrity and discomfort that is the main cabin of a Boeing 737.”

Check-in and boarding procedures that take forever, the agony of verifying that our carry-on luggage exceeds the acceptable dimensions in the cabin by an inch, the exasperating narrowness of the cubicle in which we will spend the next 8, 10, 12 hours of our lives sitting, the lack of a personal hygiene kit…

We would all like to move to that

low-cost

paradise in which everything before disappears in one fell swoop and the chef's delights, the wide assortment of craft beers, and the VIP leisure offer appear on the horizon.

Uzma Khan, marketing

professor

at the University of Miami, summarizes in just a couple of sentences the mental operation that led airlines to create and generalize that increasingly profitable intermediate step that is the

premium tourist:

“They considered that theirs It was a real estate business, since they were renting plots in the air.

And that the size of those plots was as precious a commodity as the square meters in the center of cities as dense and expensive as Paris, New York or London.”

And, once the niche was explored and it was proven that there were legion of passengers willing to occupy it, they began to systematize the strategy and offer more and more additional details until they consolidated a commercial aviation with three types of passengers: the absolute elite, the common people and a new aspirational middle class.

Becky Pokora, editor of the international edition of Forbes magazine

,

explains that intermediate rates are proliferating “in a very particular context.”

During the pandemic, people stopped flying, and, upon resuming this more or less daily activity after restrictions and confinements, they discovered that “they actually hate doing it,” because it is an “uncomfortable, stressful” experience that makes us feel “ as members of a flock.”

Given that business class flights usually cost three to five times as much as ordinary ones, paying between 40% and 75% more for a good substitute, that intermediate cabin with priority boarding, spacious cubicles with reclining seats, footrests and headrests , gourmet menu, welcome cocktail, touch screen with expanded audiovisual entertainment, pillow and down, eye mask and earplugs, is revealed to be a very attractive option.

Pokora offers a comparative analysis of the flight conditions in the three available modalities and concludes that the premium option is increasingly attractive for a substantial part of customers and, without a doubt, very profitable for airlines.

Although the great pioneers in this process of gradual gentrification have been companies with a love for luxury, such as Emirates Airlines, almost all of them, from British Airways to Delta Air Lines, including Air France, Iberia, Cathay Pacific, Virgin, Qantas or Lufthansa, They have been incorporated into this happy squaring of the circle.

The advertising of many of these companies is focusing on how their plus or premium options are increasingly closer to the executive “experience” at a much lower price.

The middle class, once again, accesses paradise.

Critical voices, such as that of Whizy Kim in Vox

magazine ,

point out, despite everything, that, given the current market circumstances, many companies may find it “tempting” to tolerate a general deterioration in basic flight conditions so that each time more users feel inclined to dig deep into their pockets.

In his opinion, it would already be happening.

Kim cites recent studies that point to a general drop in customer satisfaction rates for U.S. airlines.

Have they become more demanding?

Has the pandemic in any way exacerbated your taste for quality of life and your intolerance of stress and discomfort?

Or can we conclude that the experience of flying in economy class is now less satisfying than ever?

Traveler

magazine's Jessica Puckett

was among the first to wonder why everyone is suddenly taking to flying premium options.

Her response could not have been more eloquent: “Because a chasm has opened up, in terms of luxury, customer service and comfort, between ordinary and improved economy class.”

And everyone who can afford it prefers to cross the ditch and separate themselves from the masses, if only to avoid landing at their destination with a deep vein thrombosis.

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