Short/Medium Haul Business Class

[Espada III]

Various airlines on which I have been travelling on 3-5 hour routes have swapped out the widebodied aircraft for more frequent narrow bodied machines.

The benefits of Business Class on the wide bodied planes are clear to see with much wider seats with almost infinite legroom and equivalent of First Class of only a few years ago.

My last experience on a narrow body plane of first class was regular seats and leg room, but with no-one in the seat next to you. Are they all like this now?

Seems like it could be cheaper to buy two economy seats than a single business class up front.

[t1grm]

Yes, as far as I can tell, for all the EU short haul flights I have been on, business class seating is the same as economy except the middle seat is blocked. Some airlines have a bit more leg room on the first few rows but, on a full flight, business class often extends to row 6 or 8 where you are sitting in normal economy leg room.

Air Malta has a fold down squab in the middle seat that forms a table for the first few rows. I haven’t seen that anywhere else yet. On a not so busy flight, if you check in early online and sit up the front of economy, then you can fold down the middle seat and effectively have a business class seat (without the extras)!

Of course you have to consider the other benefits like a hot meal, free booze, lounge access, bonus air miles, flexible fares etc but, to my mind, business class is a waste of money on short haul unless you really need the flexible ticket benefits. Fully flexible economy is usually near business class fare so then it’s worth going the extra bit to have the other benefits.

P.S. About your latter suggestion; can you buy two economy tickets and then check in both on one name? What if you are a late check in and they don’t have two adjacent seats? Do you end up with two seats in your name at other ends of the aircraft! :E

[edi_local]

Usually if you book an extra seat in economy then you should make it very very clear that the seat is being bought for comfort or to store a musical instrument. Putting "MR EXTRA SEAT" would raise a few eyebrows when someone tries to sort out seating for couples, families and groups etc. You would probably do well to call the airline to let them know you need to be sat "together" with your extra seat so they can block a seat as soon as possible (some airlines can only reserve seats 48 or 24 hours in advance).

I think most, if not all, short haul European operators probably offer that table thing in the middle of 2 business class seats. I know Swiss do. BA can narrow the middle seat, meaning a slightly wider seat for business class passengers. I fly domestic legs on BA quite a lot and usually manage to sit in the front 5 rows on their Airbus fleet. These seats are sometimes set up for business class configuration on a domestic flight, so on 9 out of 10 flights I have no one next to me and usually the middle seat is narrowed so no one can sit there anyway. BA don't do business class on domestic flights anyway, so it seems to just be left set up for the next, or previous flight config.