The incredible airfare mindset change

A strange thing happened when my decaying joints could no longer tolerate Cattle Class: I began springing for more expensive airline seats. My body continues to thank me

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An El Al Boeing 787 in retro livery. Retro prices would be kind of nice, too.

When I was young and regularly partaking of 12-hour flights between the US East Coast and the Middle East, I thought nothing of sitting for hours in the back of the plane. It’s where the other young people were, meaning all the fun. (Back then, the liquor was free for everyone.) In addition, the seat pitch (or, more specifically, the legroom) was reasonable, even for this six-footer. Also, my joints had yet to hear of arthritis.

Then came marriage and kids, and while the 12-hour flights continued, partying was no longer much of an attraction. Seat pitch figures also began to shrink, but raising a family – especially with the specter of braces and college tuition – meant Cattle Class would have to do.

Then came a couple of health issues. The first involved my joints, which were becoming better versed by the day on most of the orthopedic ailments detailed in the Mayo Clinic Health Directory. The second was COVID. This had less of an impact on me personally and more on airfares, especially of the upper-crust kind.

As explained in an article that appeared recently in Bloomberg, the pandemic affected airline revenues from business travelers, “who are individually many times more valuable to an airline than anybody headed to a girls’ weekend in Miami.”

As the excellent Amanda Mull relates, “suddenly, the most reliable customers vanished from the skies. When conventions and client visits became Zooms in 2020, airlines slashed prices and devised strategies to get people to book at the front of the plane.… When revenue was especially scarce, cutting those fares by half or more to entice first-time upgraders was still preferable to having them sit in coach.”

That’s when non-business travelers like me discovered the ‘tween and twixt classes of Economy Plus and Premium Economy.

While not quite in the budget-depleting stratospheres of Business and First Class, these classes offered a much more comfortable experience than the shrinking ergonomics in Economy and the even more bare-boned category of Basic Economy, the legacy carriers’ homage to the upstart no-frills airlines, where everything beyond the narrow, knees-on-nose seats cost extra. (And I mean everything.)

Those careful enough to consult traveler websites like Seat Guru found that Economy Plus generally meant increased pitch although in the same narrow seats as Economy, while Premium Economy generally meant wider seats, too.

By scrutinizing Seat Guru, it became clear that some legacy carriers offered only the former, while others, especially those operating the Boeing 787, with its dedicated cabins, offered the latter.

I personally discovered Premium Economy on Air Canada just prior to COVID, when the airline’s eagerness to promote the new travel class on the 787s it operated between Tel Aviv and Toronto resulted in fares that were about 30% higher than Economy.

The additional $400 for a round-trip flight was not unsubstantial, but I quickly found that the Premium Economy seat was pretty much identical to the Business Class seat of yore, which way back when cost roughly double the fare for an Economy Class seat, if not more (and sometimes much more).

In short, it was a far better deal than the Business Class of the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, if only as a sop to my growing aches and pains. I mean, why suffer the confining parameters of an Economy Class seat when it will take you a week at your destination before you can once again stand upright and get your knees to give you a relatively comfortable stride?

SINCE THAT Air Canada flight, I have never looked back, at least where Premium Economy is available. What’s more, I find myself consulting Seat Guru to determine who has it and who doesn’t. I then book my non-stop flights to North America accordingly, most often seeking out companies operating the 787, with its dedicated Premium Economy cabin, meaning Air Canada and United.

Of course, since October 7, these two carriers have pulled out of the Israeli market, leaving the non-stop 787 routes to North America solely in the hands of El Al, an airline I have long despised. Security might be its strong suit, but El Al’s historically surly cabin crews and inability to stick to timetables – coupled with its lack of availability over the weekend – long caused me to look elsewhere.

Now El Al is all there is.

But I’m hooked on Premium Economy for flights beyond Europe, and Bloomberg’s Mull explains why.

“Now that travelers have had a taste of the good life… many have opted to continue buying, even as discounts have vanished,” she states. “Airlines now also have a treasure trove of data about the pitches, amenities and prices that convert people into premium ticket buyers. And for many carriers, what’s worked best is more aggressive marketing of fare classes that are only mildly premium, which don’t require travelers to make a huge leap in price.”

That might be less true for El Al, whose patriotism in wartime doesn’t quite extend to its monopolistic pricing, but we have a family wedding coming up in the US… and what’s one to do?

All we can do is spend wisely on other expenditures and hope for a quick return to normalcy. And by “normalcy” I don’t mean the return of foreign air carriers – although that would indeed be nice.