Comment by skissane
4 years ago
> I can't fly comfortably anymore unless i get that private jet, which i can't afford.
Huh? Pick a decent airline, and long haul international business class is pretty comfortable. First, I hear, is even better. Expensive, but a heckuva lot less so than a private jet.
For really long distance flights, yes things are OK, but i'm flying over 5 hours maybe a couple times per year and never did since covid. But on "short" haul (intra EU) flights, and these are typically 3-4 hours from where i live, there is now either no premium service at all or "euro business", which is economy with middle seat blocked, best case with a transformer seat that slightly increase seat width by moving inner armrests inwards, but even that is a rarity. Some backwards, poor countries where digitalisation lags behind others, like Romania and Bulgaria, kept it for a lot longer, in fact Bulgaria Air still has proper business class on a few planes, but every "modern" country (France, Germany, Italy etc) destroyed their premium "short" haul service a long time ago.
Belarus hanged in for a lot longer than others, too, and i think for same reason. Russia still does - Aeroflot has proper 3-class service on most flights and at least normal 2-class even on short haul.
> For really long distance flights, yes things are OK, but i'm flying over 5 hours maybe a couple times per year and never did since covid. But on "short" haul (intra EU) flights, and these are typically 3-4 hours from where i live, there is now either no premium service at all or "euro business", which is economy with middle seat blocked, best case with a transformer seat that slightly increase seat width by moving inner armrests inwards, but even that is a rarity
This seems to really be a European thing. Proper domestic business class still exists in Australia (on premium carrier flights between most major cities–even between Sydney and Melbourne, which is only about 1 hour), and I'm not aware of any plans to discontinue it. Similarly, in Japan, domestic flights have first class and business class (never been on either–but both are better seats, as opposed to just blocking off seats in economy). Business class with proper seats is available on domestic flights in China too. First/business class on shorter US domestic flights looks pretty crappy, but I believe it is much better for the longer US domestic flights (such as JFK-LAX nonstop, or Hawaiian's BOS-HNL nonstop route).
You are probably right.