Have you ever heard of economy class syndrome? It is well documented that on long-duration flights and in conditions of forced immobility in confined spaces, one in a thousand passengers on commercial flights suffers from symptoms of deep vein thrombosis, a potentially serious condition.
To combat this, in the first decade of this century, airlines began offering extra space between seats, 15 to 30 extra centimeters, the difference between claustrophobic confinement and complete comfort to anyone willing to pay a little more money. You read well. Not a little more space for everyone on a doctor's prescription, but a voluntary improvement in flight health conditions for a new high-flying middle class, for those who couldn't (or wouldn't) buy a ticket in business or first class. , but a slightly higher rate to remove the constraints of the economy.
Today we know that this commercial maneuver of dubious morality was the embryo of the premium economy class that became increasingly popular after the hardships of the pandemic. Mac Schwerin warned of this phenomenon in a perceptive article in The Atlantic magazine. In it, Schwerin explained: “Most of us find it particularly annoying to be locked in this hell of mediocrity and inconvenience that is the main cabin of a Boeing 737.” The endless check-in and boarding procedures, the torture of checking , whether our hand luggage exceeds the permitted dimensions in the cabin by one centimeter, the annoying narrowness of the cabin in which we will spend the next 8, 10, 12 hours of our lives sitting. , the lack of a personal hygiene kit…
We all want to move to the low-cost paradise where everything that came before disappears in one fell swoop and chef's delights, wide selection of craft beers and VIP entertainment loom on the horizon. Uzma Khan, a marketing professor at the University of Miami, sums up in just a few sentences the mental process that led airlines to create and generalize the increasingly profitable intermediate step, the premium tourist: “They thought their company was a Real estate business as they rented properties in the air. And that the size of these properties is just as valuable a commodity as the square meters in the center of densely populated and expensive cities like Paris, New York or London. And when the niche was explored and it became clear that there was a legion of passengers ready to occupy it, they began to systematize the strategy, offering more and more additional details until they had a commercial aviation with three types of passengers consolidated: the absolute elite, the vulgar and a new emerging middle class.
Becky Pokora, editor of the international edition of Forbes magazine, explains that the prevalence of medium interest rates is increasing “in a very specific context.” During the pandemic, people stopped flying, and when they resumed this more or less daily activity after restrictions and lockdowns, they found that they “actually hate it” because it is an “unpleasant, stressful” experience makes us do it makes us feel like “members of a herd.” Given that business class flights typically cost three to five times as much as regular flights and you can expect to pay between 40% and 75% more for a good substitute, this intermediate cabin features priority boarding, spacious cabins with lie-flat seats , foot and headrest, gourmet menu, welcome cocktail, touch screen with enhanced audio-visual entertainment, pillow and down, eye mask and earplugs prove to be a very attractive option.
Pokora offers a comparative analysis of flight conditions in the three available modalities and concludes that the premium option is increasingly attractive for a significant proportion of customers and is undoubtedly very profitable for airlines. Although the great pioneers in this process of gradual gentrification were companies with a penchant 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 has joined this happy squaring of the circle. The advertising of many of these companies focuses on how their Plus or Premium options are increasingly closer to the executive “experience” and at a much lower price. The middle class once again has access to paradise.
Despite everything, critical voices such as Whizy Kim in Vox magazine point out that, given the current market situation, it could be “tempting” for many companies to accept a general deterioration in business conditions. More and more users are tending to delve deeply into the grab bag. In his opinion, it was already happening. Kim cites recent studies indicating an overall decline in customer satisfaction among U.S. airlines. Have they become more demanding? Has the pandemic in any way increased your sense of quality of life and your intolerance to stress and discomfort? Or can we conclude that the economy class flying experience is now less satisfying than ever?
Traveler magazine's Jessica Puckett was one of the first to wonder why everyone was suddenly choosing to fly premium options. His answer couldn't have been more eloquent: “Because a gap has opened up between the ordinary and the upper class of tourists when it comes to luxury, customer service and comfort.” And everyone who can afford it prefers to move across the divide and separate themselves from that Mass, if only to avoid ending up with a deep vein thrombosis.
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