stretch out in premium (British Airways in general)

Member Name: Cat19

Product:	British Airways in general
Date:	10/05/06 (12387 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: more room and greater comfort

Disadvantages: more expensive than coach

I have made two round trips in BA premium economy class. The first time was about four years ago when it was still quite a new concept and that trip was to Bangkok. Last week I accompanied my beloved on a four day trip to Bermuda as he had a job interview there. I had been hoping the company would furnish us with business class tickets but mustn’t grumble..

Premium economy was introduced as a relatively affordable travel class for people willing to pay slightly more for a more comfortable flying experience but not willing or able to pay for business class travel, which generally means most people paying for their own flight and not actually on business. It is only available on long haul flights and on what I will call medium haul such as to Egypt or Jordan where the flight is over about four hours. Indeed this makes sense as the main point of it is extra space and in short haul not even business class has much extra space.

Tickets and prices
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I still remember the approximate cost of my flight to Bangkok, I paid £800 and I recall weighing this up against the economy flight cost at that time of about £450. We did not pay for the tickets for the trip to Bermuda but I have researched the prices in different classes in order to provide a comparative. On the dates we travelled, had we booked the fares ourselves it would have cost:

Economy £737
Premium Economy £1,257
Business £3,190
First £6,077 (for people living in a different world to me!)

As BA is the only airline to fly to Bermuda from the UK, there is no competition to drive prices down so these prices are all quite high, however I have looked into prices for other routes to and the above figures are indicative as to whereabouts this class of travel fits between economy and business price wise (i.e. much closer to economy) and also what the premium typically costs (i.e. a couple of hundred pounds for each way). Yesterday on our return flight i overheard they were offering the premium economy upgrades for US $250 which would have been a lot cheaper than buying in advance but of course there is no guarantee that these will always be available and on more popular routes probably won’t be.

Before flight
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The hand baggage allowance for premium economy is two pieces weighing no more than 12kgs and for checked baggage it is 23kgs. The hand baggage allowance in economy class is half of this but the checked baggage allowance is the same.

When I think back to the Thailand flight I took four years ago, I am sure there was a separate check in queue but I could be mistaken. Anyway there is definitely not a separate queue now, premium economy checks in with economy class. I had been slightly disappointed when I realised I would not be beating queues, however at Gatwick the lines for flights to US and Bermuda were none existent and we were checked in within five minutes anyway. After check in the procedure is the same as for economy class, no lounge facilities and no “fast track” lane through the bag scanning section to the departure gates.

In-flight
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The premium economy section is situated on the plane between business class and economy class and is curtained off from both. It is quite a small section, on my flight to Bermuda there were about eight rows of seats and the configuration across was 2 – 4 – 2 which is slightly more generous than the economy configuration of 3 – 4 – 3 allowing a slightly wider seat. The seat pitch is 38 inches which allows 6 or 7 more inches of leg room than you get in economy class and this makes a lot of difference to the overall comfort. I did not feel crammed in even when the seat in front was reclined, in fact I could comfortably sit back and cross my legs. The tray table is in the arm of the chair rather than on the back of the seat in front, not particularly relevant in itself but this is because it would be too far away from you if it were on the seat back and hence I mention it.

The chair itself reclines slightly further than those in economy class and there is also a leg rest that comes out but not that much, there is a foot rest which can be in two positions and when I was using this I barely even noticed the chair leg rest. You are certainly a very long way from the flat bed in premium economy class!

Unlike the economy class seats, the armrests in premium economy cannot be moved because it is a solid divider needed to store the tray tables. My flight to Bermuda had plenty of empty seats and in economy class most people could find two if not three of four seats to themselves and were able to raise the arm rests and lie down, but in premium economy we could not do this and only had our own seat, despite there being plenty of empty ones around.

Other than this the inflight experience was much the same as for economy but you do get served drinks and meals first and receive a complementary newspaper (daily mail). As this review is about premium economy I am not going to into all the details of the flight, which was quite uneventful anyway.

Summary
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I think that premium economy class is a great idea and goes some way towards filling the enormous comfort gap between the traditional travel classes. In fact as somebody who is quite tall, fidgety and positively dreads those very long uncomfortable flights, it was something I wished an airline would introduce long before they ever did. It can add to the cost of a normal economy flight considerably but it is not totally out of reach like first or business and could be budgeted for. I would definitely fly premium again if I were travelling to Asia or Australia / New Zealand, I don’t think it is worth it on the four hour flights and as for a flight to Bermuda (6 – 7 hours), well possibly I would go premium again depending upon how much like splashing out I felt.

The price paid for premium economy is purely for the extra leg room, the other differences with economy class are barely noticeable. I have awarded 5 stars because for me the leg room is one of the most important factors when flying long distance and makes a huge difference to comfort levels and I think the option of this class of travel was needed and overdue.

Summary: a good option for long flights