[Swissdiver]

@DoS and Alex: I still feel the magic of travelling long haul, like Alex describes. And I don’t work either airborne (long haul). Now I have to admit this is not true with any airline or aircraft or destination, and I am not such a big traveller (about 100’000 nm per year). For instance, an LH A340 for Jeddah is OK, but rather just functional while the BA B747 upperdeck is magic (to stick to business class). And of course the front of the B747 (BA) or the upperdeck on LH is also something…

@Becky: Before you ask, I am not snob! 🙂 But I admit loving the joys of life…

[RichHI1]

TO be fair I do not believe every one in First has an ego or is a snob. THat said there are a number of passengers I have observed on BA and on AA flights particularly to NYC who seem to think they are different to tohers. I can assure you that they do still go to the bathroom (and take their time). I travel First a lot as a medical necessity and even though tiredness and jet lag often orevent logical thought, I do feel very privileged when thought patterns return.

[LPPSKrisflyer]

In F & C cabins I find that most of the people who travel there regularly are the ones who will exchange a few words and be friendly as well as polite to the crew. The people who don’t are the ones who generally exude an air or importance possibly brought on by their insecurity in the cabin and uncertainty about how to behave. They usually exude DYKWIA in a big way.

I can remember an awful incident on TG a few years back where a guy insisted to the crew in F that he couldn’t choose his meal from the menu and would have to see it before he chose. They were very polite with him but he was totally obnoxious back to a point where it was embarrassing being British in the same cabin as I was the only other Brit present.

After a while I spoke to him and once he finished looking down his nose at me he admitted he was on an award trip saved up for for years. I had a few quiet words about behaviour which he took reasonably well but he was obviously very insecure.

[IanFromHKG]

Bickering aside, it looks as though most participants joining in the actual point of the thread concur that the main reason is the seat (me included). Having mentioned in another thread that I am schizo on the issue of carry-on bags, I am now worried that I am being schizo on this issue too, since I argued strongly in yet another thread (about the quality of wine in premium cabins) that it was incredibly important that carriers didn’t skimp on pampering in premium cabins and particularly on the wine. Hmmmm…..

More meds, nurse!!

Rich, alexlondon and others – perhaps you need to research your airlines more carefully – on many routes there are airlines with long beds in C. I am 6’3″ / 189cm, and I must admit I find it very hard to sleep in the 6’1″ NCW seat. I have no problem in the CX seat (either the “current” coffin or the even larger new one). I understand the VS seat is 6’7″, ANZ is 6’5.5″, Air India 6’4″, bmi 6’6″ – 6’8″, Emirates 6’6″, and the list goes on… Now of course these won’t cover all routes, and there is a difference between the quoted length and the amount of it you can actually use (CX openly state that their new seat, while 6’10” long, has a usable bed length of 6’3″ although my own experience is that the usable length is a lot longer) but even so…

On the whole snobbery issue. Let’s be honest. Some of us ARE a bit snobby about travel. Anyone who has had their bum on an airline seat for as many hours per year over as many years as many posters here does build up prejudices, preferences and attitudes about class of travel and, frankly, their fellow travellers. I understand from your previous posts, Becky, that you are relatively young and work as a PA. I have no idea what you earn and wouldn’t dream of asking, but I would hazard a guess that your disposable income, in terms of real world buying power, isn’t hugely different from what mine used to be. In those days, I remember having conversations with the memsahib about people flying business class for leisure and we both concluded that they were utterly mad and it was a total waste of money. We weren’t snobby because we simply couldn’t afford to be. Now, most of the time, we do pay (with cash or points), because to us it (now) represents value for money, and (a small) part of that value is wanting to get away from the crush in economy and of course that involves an element of wanting to get away from all the people there. That doesn’t make us snobs (in the pejorative sense), and we aren’t passing value judgments on any of the individuals in that cabin, and I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest that the behaviour you are likely to encounter in a premium cabin is necessarily better (frequently, quite the opposite). However, the point I am driving at here (I know I am rambling a bit) is that in the fullness of time, Becky, I think your own attitude to travel classes will change, particularly if you are unfortunate enough to continue doing a lot of travel and/or fortunate enough to reach a point where you have the disposable income to afford premium travel on a regular basis. And, to emphasise the point, that won’t make you a snob (in the pejorative sense) either, although it may mean you have become snobby (in the sense of having prejudices about travel classes, service levels, surroundings etc) about some aspects of travel. I think that if you go back over other people’s posts you will see that most of them, if they are snobby at all, are only snobby in the latter sense. Either way, I hope we can leave the unpleasant accusations aside – quite apart from anything else, it generates an excessive proportion of heat to light.

By the way – Bill Gates. Yes, he would pay coach for domestic flights, but he often ended up flying First because he would get upgraded (“I don’t resist when this happens” – you should remember that in the US a fairly standard perk for frequent fliers is automatic upgrades). He also said that his “body fits” in coach and that if he were tall or large, he “might view the issue differently”. For international flights, he flew business class. And furthermore, I suspect he doesn’t fly coach very often any more. Not since he bought his own private jet….

[LuganoPirate]

I have to agree Ian, when you’re earning £1,500 a month a £3,000 C ticket seems an awful lot. If earning £15,000 a month it seems reasonable. It’s all relative.

[Henkel.Trocken]

I was thinking a bit more about F&C travel last night and I think part of it is about volume and the need for more space when you travel a lot. After all, no one mixes naturally with several hundred other people for hours at a time, in my case several times a week. We are more used to existing in smaller circles of people.

I began to wonder if this is also why I always stay on the Club Floor in a hotel. The service is better, it is more intimate, staff know you and know what you like and want and you don’t have breakfast with 500 other people.

Is it all about our need for space and if we didn’t travel so much would Y be alright for the odd occasions?

[BeckyBoop]

LP sorry if I got a bit shirty with you last night, I didn’t read your previous comment xxxxx

Ian thanks for your post. On a general note, until November I used to fly at least once a month SH and LH quarterly. This has been cut back since we sold off all our European business and a partner sold his shares. As far as salary goes for a PA I do quite well esp being Lon based. However after tax, daily travel costs, rent (house keep, still live at home), shopping and going out most of that goes. When I go on my hols I don’t worry about not flying in F or C because it’s mostly always SH (med based) and either fly charter or lcc. For work I can fly in first or business. So I see it as treat, I have also built up some good miles too which I hope to blow on eventually on my honeymoon or next dream holiday. All my family and personal friends fly Y long and short. Sadly I meet stuck up snobs almost everyday from clients, investors, bankers, fund managers and traders. It gets worse when if I am at a drink/cocktail party as lots of people think of me as being common because I speak with a thick cockney accent and I know this as I have heard people talking behind my back. So when I was here people talk about sitting in Y as beneath them it makes me mega p******. Xxx

[Papillion53]

BeckyBoop – That makes makes me so mad when people “judge a book by its cover” – don’t you worry what other people say – it’s their problem – and anyway most of these high-flyers wouldn’t be able to operate without PA’s like you (and/or their wives! LOL!) looking after them! And don’t you ever feel you have to justify yourself – I started my career (many years ago) as a PA so I know where you’re coming from! 😉 🙂 Now I’m the wife looking after “he who has the BAmiles Amexcard”! LOL!

[Swissdiver]

Ladies: behind any successful man is a clever wife… or vice-versa as a certain former UK PM would argue 🙂

[LuganoPirate]

Thanks Becky. I’m back in love with you again 😉 thought you hated me!

Seriously, some of the most successful people I know are cockneys, or at least speak with a cockney accent, and I know quite a few people who speak like toffs but have no substance behind them at all. All fur coats and no knickers (I love that phrase, just heard it recently!!).

My first wife is Dutch. At her brothers wedding her aunt said of me in Dutch, “He’s been here three years and still cannot speak Dutch, he must be really stupid”. I turned and replied in Dutch, “better to keep your mouth shut and be thought stupid, than to open it and prove that you are”.

She went bright red, the room erupted in laughter and to her great embarrassment this story is still recalled 25 years later.

There’s a moral somewhere in this story, not sure what but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

[MartynSinclair]

LP, that is a First Class crawl back into someones affections !!!

[BeckyBoop]

AWW bless :o) BTW is that why you split ? xx

[Pierre]

The most important on a long haul flight is the ‘flat seat’, food & drinks are usually poor, and one is not in a condition to enjoy them. Airlines make a lot of noise around, but once on board, it does not matter.

[esselle]

In the days when I used to travel on business, I used to have great fun looking for the best price, and often managed to fly, for example, in F on SQ cheaper than J on BA same route, which gave a quiet sense of achievement.

Now that I am close to needing a winch to get me out of the Aston, it has to be F on longhaul otherwise I won’t go. On shorties, however, I am perfectly happy in Y, or EZY, because I zone out and read my Kindle for the hour or so it takes.

[IanFromHKG]

Becky, I wasn’t trawling for more information, just trying to make the point (gently, I hope) that what you saw as snobbery might have been something else. I prefer the exclusivity (space, fewer people etc) of a proper C cabin and will always choose it if it is available at a proper price (but then only this week the memsahib and I decided not to fly LHR to Athens in C because there is not enough of a difference in the cabins to justify the fare difference). Preferring that exclusivity doesn’t, to my mind, make me a snob, and as I said, I don’t make value judgments about people in Y. I hope (and choose to believe) the same is true of most people here.

BTW everyone who meets me sees me as a typical middle-class public-school Oxbridge type with a posh accent who grew up in the Home Counties (all true) of long-standing middle-class stock (which isn’t). My father was a Cockney who left school at 15, did five years’ training (for which he had to pay) to qualify as a solicitor (becoming the youngest person ever to do so) and ended up as senior partner of a major City law firm… A Cockney come good! And only yesterday I came across a guy who, despite being Hong Kong Chinese, speaks with a pure Cockney accent, and I have to tell you it was a joy to hear 🙂

On a separate note, Becky, you seem to have been a bit snappy/antagonistic recently. Is all not well in Beckyland?

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