Caveat viator

Can a full-service airline capture thrifty passengers with an “economy minus” option, and squeeze a few extra dollars for seats with more legroom? Can a low-cost carrier pick off savvy business travellers with a keenly priced premium option, even if it’s not today’s business standard?

These answers are easier: yes. On the surface, that sounds great — more choice for flyers. The problem is that many passengers don’t have the information they need to make an educated choice, and most corporate travellers (who often determine a route’s success or failure) don’t have travel policies flexible enough to account for the differences.

As a concept, market segmentation is nothing new, as shown by the late 1970s creation of a “Club Class” section by British Airways and the first proper business class by Qantas, as well as the 1992 addition of “Mid Class” and “Economy Deluxe” by Virgin Atlantic and the then-EVA Airways, respectively.

‘Passengers don’t have the information they need to make an educated choice.’

Indeed, airlines keep trying to fill the gap between business and economy, especially as the business class passenger experience improves and the economy experience, largely, declines.

Airbus calls the gap between economy and business the “comfort canyon”, but the canyon isn’t just a 2D cross-section, where airline X’s economy class reaches a certain level of comfort and business reaches another. Economy and business classes vary significantly — even within the same airline, let alone airline groups and alliances.

Fly Qatar Airways, say, and you might get some of the world’s most spacious economy seats on the Airbus A380 or A350, but seats 1-2 inches narrower on the ten-abreast Boeing 777 or nine-abreast 787. (To make matters even more confusing, Qatar also operates some older 777s with a spacious nine-abreast layout.)

Qantas passengers will find something similar when moving between the airline’s A380s with their wide seats and the Boeing 787’s markedly narrower ones. It’s the same with many airlines flying into and out of Australia.

On Qantas Group longhaul flights alone, the range of seating options between Jetstar’s most basic economy, its bundles that include extra legroom seats, and its premium economy-lite “business class”, plus Qantas’ economy, premium economy, business and remaining first class, means that the airline offers seven basic flight options before you even start really playing around with flexibility or ancillary revenues.

How much more should you pay for a Jetstar Plus bundled economy fare than a regular Qantas Economy Sale ticket? How about Jetstar business versus Qantas premium economy? Part of the problem is that many passengers’ needs are different, based on their height, build, and what they want inflight. Finding a way to properly compare across airlines remains difficult and often riddled with inaccuracies.

Comparison websites don’t always help either, not least because the actions and inactions of airlines and comparison websites create confusion. Delta Air Lines’ use of the fare code W, which is generally used for international premium economy — the class with recliner seats like domestic Australian narrowbody business class — is a good example.
Using the Google Flights search engine for a premium economy return flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, Delta Air Lines returns a nonstop premium economy price of A$1657, some thousand dollars less than Virgin Australia’s premium economy, and $2800 less than Qantas’.

If you’re thinking that sounds odd, since Delta only has premium economy on its brand new Airbus A350 aircraft, which don’t operate to Sydney, you’re right, but Delta doesn’t go out of its way to show it.

On clicking through to Delta’s website to book, passengers are presented with flights in “Delta Comfort+”, with the booking code of W, which is commonly used for international premium economy. Delta, however, uses it for the Comfort+ extra-legroom economy product, which doesn’t offer different seats, different service concept, or different benefits including additional luggage allowance, priority checkin, extra frequent flyer points, and so on.

Delta’s own website flight search is clearer, but other flight search and comparison websites gave similarly questionable information for “premium economy” searches on Delta. Some of this is obviously inexpert coding, but how many passengers turn up having bought what they thought is premium economy to find that they really only got a few inches of extra legroom?

Setting expectations is key to the passenger experience. Airlines control what fares they allow comparison and flight search sites to use. They also control their own websites, and have the option to show interstitial messages and images of exactly what passengers coming from other sites are buying.
In the age of fragmented passenger experience, more clarity — and perhaps more of a sense of responsibility — is sorely needed.