To PE or not to PE?

“Because Upper Class is always full, I often wind up going economy,” Richard Branson said when introducing Mid Class, seemingly in the days before he had his own private jet. “What I’ve noticed was there are a lot of business travellers in economy. Some have their own businesses. Some have actually moved down from Upper Class. ” The latter facet of the premium economy model is what spooked many airlines into waiting years or decades before jumping on the premium economy bandwagon – cannibalising revenue from business class was the golden goose very few airlines wanted to risk cooking.

The new cabins offered wider seats, more recline, a spacious 2-4-2 configuration (compared with 3-4-3 in economy) and seemed closer to Qantas’s contemporary Dreamtime sleeper seat than any of them do to the long-haul business class seats of today.

Sorry, fans of the “premium economy seats of today are the business class seats of 10 years ago” aphorism: the premium economy seats of 22 years ago were the business class seats of 22 years ago.

Sixteen years late to the premium economy party, Qantas introduced premium economy on its Airbus A380 fleet in 2008 – the same seat that it offers on its narrowbody aircraft as business class on short and mediumhaul flights.

As a product offering, it currently varies wildly between airlines, and is the most inconsistent cabin class currently offered.

Numerous airlines offer an ancillary revenue upsell with just more legroom in regular economy seats with a confusingly similar name – Economy Plus, Economy Comfort, or even actually Premium Economy.

And some airlines offer just the bulkhead and exit row seats as a supposedly premium product.

At the other end of the spectrum are seats that fly as business class on other airlines.

It’s a battle for the cushiest of all between British Airways’ OpenSkies subsidiary’s Prem Plus seating (a sleeper seat 20in/51cm wide with 47in/119cm of pitch in a 2-2 configuration on Boeing 757s, with as much inflight champagne as you can drink) and AirAsia X’s Premium Flatbed (an angle flat seat 20in/51cm wide with 60in/152cm of pitch in a 2-2-2layout on Airbus A330s, with a firmly economy style meal but a chance to get some real kip).

But most proper premium economy seats are around 19in (48cm) wide, with 38in (97cm)of pitch in two standard sets of layouts: 2-3-2 on the Airbus A330/340 cross-section and 2-4-2 on the Boeing 777 or the main deck of a 747 or Airbus A380.

Lufthansa is the latest previous premium economy holdout to begin rolling out comfier chairs onto its existing fleet, with a standard (if updated with bells, whistles and at-seat power sockets) offering to be installed across its long-haul fleet this year. (Interestingly, Lufthansa’s premium economy on the A380 will be in the same downstairs front zone as Qantas’s first class. Think on that as you sip on a glass of reasonably priced Lufthansa blauer portugieser. ) Air New Zealand has walked back from the revolutionary Spaceseat it introduced on its 777‑300ER aircraft in early 2011, which is in a very spacious 2‑2‑2 angled layout. (And usually costs the same as business class to London when compared with competitors like Malaysia Airlines. ) Now, both Air NZ’s new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and refurbished 777-200ER premium economy cabins are receiving a standard seat, distinguishable from Lufthansa’s and Cathay Pacific’s only by the colour of covering and the accent of the cabin crew.

And Singapore Airlines is the latest to spruik its plans, with a May announcement promising a middle cabin between its already generous economy seating and business class on its 777-300ER and A380 aircraft starting in 2015.

There’s still a place for the “economy with more legroom” products for a few tens or even a hundred dollars on top of an economy ticket, among the plethora of baggage charges, hotels, insurance, charity donation and other tickybox options when buying a flight.

But more than one passenger has been booked into an Australian airline’s codeshare or alliance partner’s Economy Comfort or Main Cabin Extra seat on a connection from an international premium economy flight and been surprised by getting just a regular economy seat with a few inches more legroom.

Airlines benefit from their own purposeful opaqueness and a lack of standards. It’s time the industry – and if not, the regulators – took care of making certain premium economy is actually premium economy.