It is common knowledge that business class is a travel class offered by many commercial airlines. In the airline industry, business class was originally conceived as an intermediate level of service between the economy and first class and over time many airline companies have started offering business class as the superior class of service The salient features of business class include the comfort levels of seating, better quality food, serving of drinks, ground service and such other amenities. Most professionals and regular air travelers who are required to travel long distances - be it domestic or overseas - prefer to fly business class. In view of this, most airlines have made it a practice to offer business class flights.
In the United States, business class is generally restricted to transcontinental flights - and mostly on certain prestige routes. In Europe, airlines usually offer business class marked by improved economy seating with better quality service. Some airlines such as Air France and Lufthansa use convertible seats that seat three people across in economy and British Airways uses convertible seats only on their European Regional network and not on domestic flights.
Further, busy professionals who travel by air do a lot of office work flying. And for this, they need the extra comforts of business class flights. Most busy professionals often travel long distances to represent their business interests, participate in meetings, fulfill appointments, interact with other officials etc. It is here that business class flights can make a difference.
Besides, air travels to distant countries almost always entail long haul travel and the only way that a traveling executive can hope to combat the travel fatigue and jet lag is to fly in business class with added comforts.
The businessman seizes the opportunity to take some valuable rest during the flight and arrive fresh at his destination. To help him do that, many business class flights provide reclining seats. There are essentially three types of business class seats.
- Cradle seats are seats with around 160 degrees of recline and substantially more leg room and they are quite common in business class on shorter routes.
- Angled lie flat seats recline almost 180 degrees to provide a flat sleeping surface, but may not be fully parallel to the floor of the aircraft when reclined.
- Fully flat seats recline into a flat sleeping surface which is parallel to the floor.
- Herringbone seats are positioned at an angle to the direction of travel and generally found in some wide body cabins to allow direct aisle access for each seat.
Interestingly, economy class passengers are usually not allowed inside the business class cabin though first class passengers can pass through the curtain between business and first class.
The other benefit of business class flights is you are the first on and off the plane. This means you will be seated sooner than the crowd of economy passengers and also deplane earlier. You can also avail more luxurious waiting halls. In fact, some business class waiting sections offer shower and nap rooms as well as access to the internet.
Most airline companies believe that business class flight is a compelling necessity and there is no way they can eliminate them completely. We are living in an increasingly globalized economy and airlines are required to cater to different types of passengers and offer different levels of flying comfort.
