Premium Economy categories in airlines

There is a new class of service emerging in the aircraft cabin. It fits between economy and business class, both in amenities and price. It offers a better seat, more legroom, priority boarding and fancier meal service than coach.

The only catch is, you cannot find anything comparable on any American airline.

Although “premium economy” fares have been available on some foreign carriers for more than a decade, a handful have raised the ante recently by carving out a separate cabin in their aircraft for business travelers on a budget and leisure travelers willing to pay extra for a more comfortable flight. Demand for premium economy seats may actually be helped by the slowing economy as companies tighten their spending and restrict business-class travel.
Virgin Atlantic overhauled its premium economy service last year, the new British Airways airline OpenSkies started its prem-plus cabin in mid-June, and Qantas Airways and Japan Airlines plan to introduce their premium economy services on routes to the United States later this year.
“It’s a smart business move because there’s been what I call class creep on an airplane,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Forrester Research. “What’s now called business class is almost what first class used to be. So premium economy is more like what business class used to be back in the 1980s, akin in many ways to U.S. domestic first class in terms of legroom.”
In fact, the economy cabin has fallen so far in travelers’ esteem that OpenSkies is calling its middle cabin prem-plus — avoiding the word “economy.”
“It’s not premium economy,” said Dale Moss, managing director for OpenSkies, just after the carrier’s inaugural flight landed at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York two weeks ago.
Describing the airline’s prem-plus cabin, which has 28 seats with a roomy 52-inch pitch (the distance between the back of the seat and the seat in front of it), Mr. Moss emphasized, “It’s a business-class seat as opposed to a business-class bed.”
The leather seat is 20 inches wide and reclines to a 140-degree angle (flat would be 180 degrees) with an adjustable leg rest and lumbar support.
OpenSkies currently flies one Boeing 757 aircraft between Paris Orly airport and Kennedy and plans to add five planes on routes from New York to Europe by the end of 2009. Prem-plus fares start at $1,650 round trip, including taxes and fees, through July 4 and then will rise to $2,256.
Although a 757 typically carries 200 or more passengers, OpenSkies has 82 seats, with 24 in business class and 30 in economy. But that breakdown may shift depending on customer response to each cabin, Mr. Moss said.
Given the economy and the response to the premium economy concept on other carriers, this new middle class may have found its moment. Virgin Atlantic, which introduced its original premium economy product in 1992 when companies were downsizing after the Persian Gulf war, redesigned and expanded that part of the cabin last year.
Chris Rossi, the airline’s senior vice president for North America, said the airline has seen less corporate “trading down” lately, yet premium economy bookings have increased 20 percent over the last 10 months.
Virgin Atlantic’s premium economy seat is 21 inches wide with a 38-inch seat pitch and includes priority check-in, priority boarding and baggage claim, a preflight drink, an amenity kit and enhanced meal service.
British Airways also offers a separate premium economy cabin, called World Traveller Plus, which was introduced in 2000 and recently got a makeover with new fabric cushion and headrest covers and upgrades like noise-reducing headsets. Its seats are 18.5 inches wide with a 38-inch pitch. On both British Airways and Virgin, premium economy fares from New York to London start at $1,891, including taxes and fees.
Across the Pacific, Japan Airlines and Qantas Airways both introduced premium economy cabins last fall, and plan to extend them to flights to the United States later this year.
Japan Airline’s premium economy service will make its debut on its Tokyo to New York route on Aug. 1, featuring a “sky shell seat” that reclines within a stationary hard shell to avoid encroaching on the traveler seated behind.
In November, Qantas Airways will introduce its premium economy service to flights between Australia and Los Angeles. The new cabin is priced at about twice the economy fare and half of the business-class fare, said Lesley Grant, a Qantas group general manager.
Frank Schnur, vice president for advisory services with American Express Business Travel, said the company has seen more interest in premium economy among its corporate clients, particularly since the beginning of the year.
But carriers in the United States do not seem to be embracing the concept. While United Airlines has Economy Plus seating, it offers a few more inches of legroom than economy, but not the upgraded seat.
While acknowledging the financial challenges that American carriers face, Mr. Harteveldt attributed their absence in this arena to lack of interest in passengers outside the expensive cabins.
“People will pay an above-average price for something that’s tangibly better, so kudos to the airlines that recognize this,” he said. “The ones that don’t are going to wonder, ‘Where did my profitable customers go? ”

Hope you've read the bove case. Let me know what you suggest for the above case. Rush your postings.

Regards,

Gowdilyan.M

Issues on Pilot Salary

Dear Friends,

Here I would like to bring your notice abouth pilot salary.

Among the jobs little boys dream of — policeman, fireman, bulldozer driver — airline pilot long held the added virtue of satisfying grown-up dreams: pay that reached $300,000 a year, 20 days a month off work, the prestige of one day commanding a $200 million airplane, and a lush retirement at 60.

Jason Captain, in Fort Worth with his son Riley, 3, left the Navy and is training to be an airline pilot.

Samantha Negley gave up flying to work as a copywriter. But the airline industry’s financial collapse this decade did away with much of that, leaving thousands of young men — and increasingly women — chasing a dream toward a disappointing reality.
“My wife thinks I’m nuts,” said Jason Captain, 32, of Fort Worth who left the Navy last November, walking away from $75,000-a-year lieutenant’s pay for flying military brass in and out of Guantánamo Bay.
He started training last month to fly a 76-seat regional jet for a Northwest Airlines subsidiary and expects to make about $21,000 his first year. Like most airline pilots, Mr. Captain had his heart set on flying “ever since I was a little kid,” he said. “I can’t see myself in an office.”
In recent years, he and his wife, June, were in the odd position of saving part of his military pay so they and their two sons could afford to have him work in the private sector. It could take him a decade to work his way back up to his former income.
He hopes, of course, to jump ultimately to the big jets at Northwest Airlines, where the most senior pilots can still make more than $150,000 a year, but there is no guarantee he will get there.
And, with the airline industry ready to go into another swoon because of high fuel prices, Mr. Captain and other junior pilots could find themselves furloughed.
“You’re much better off going into plumbing, from a purely financial perspective,” said Ed Grogan, a financial planner in Gig Harbor, Wash., who has pilots among his clients.
The military is turning out fewer pilots, so aspiring aviators increasingly attend private flight schools, emerging with as much as $150,000 in student debt. Student loan payments can exceed $1,000 a month.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the biggest domestic airlines reduced their fleets by hundreds of planes, so they needed fewer pilots. And through actual and threatened bankruptcies, airlines managed to cut pilot pay by 30 percent or more. Many pilots lost big parts of their pensions. Work hours increased.
Certainly, top pay of $200,000 a year at the biggest airlines, down from $300,000, is still a nice living.
But cuts at big airlines were just the beginning of the decline in pilot careers. Regional airlines, which pay far less than hub-and-spoke carriers even after the pay cuts, expanded to handle much of the flying that bigger airlines had abandoned. Many new pilot jobs are like the one Mr. Captain is taking, with a rock-bottom starting wage that creeps slowly toward $100,000 a year.
Poor pay and fewer big-airline jobs to move up to have led to fewer applicants, creating a pilot shortage that is most acute overseas but is also felt here.
Regional airlines have had to reduce hiring standards drastically. Earlier this decade, they could insist on a candidate’s having at least 1,500 hours of total flight time before an interview. Today, that minimum is 500 hours at many regional carriers. The decline is contributing to safety concerns among some experts.
The seniority system — a new pilot starts at the bottom at most airlines, earning the lowest pay and getting the worst shifts — limits job-hopping. So choosing the right employer the first time around is crucial. Moving from first officer, the right seat, to captain, the left seat, brings the biggest leap in pay and status.
Thus, Mr. Captain, who looks forward to being called Captain Captain, turned down a job at American Eagle Airlines, the regional division of American Airlines. It initially paid better, but the wait to upgrade to captain is six and a half years. At the Northwest regional carrier, Compass, which is growing, he could make captain in as little as one year.
But things change. Network carriers like United Airlines and Delta Air Lines hire regional carriers, which are separate companies, to fly feeder routes from smaller cities into hub airports. But the big airlines renegotiate contracts every few years, often switching carriers to reduce costs. That means today’s fast-growing regional airline could be laying off pilots tomorrow.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Kit Darby, who retired a year ago as a United pilot and runs a pilot job fair business, Air Inc.

Please post comments with regard to the same.

Yours Sincerely,

Gowdilyan.M

Introduction

Dear Friends,

Here you could know and view different activities organized by MBA (Airline & Airport Management) Students, which will be helpful for you to know the progress and skill sets possesed by each individuals. Our programme is directed directly by Coimbatore Anna University as a collaborative programme with Nehru Institute of Engineering and Technology.
In this blog we have planned to upload videos with regard to Aircraft crash, security and more news on MBA(A&AM) progress, career opportunity, programmes and events organized by the students.
We'll also publish the students list who participated in different meets and won prizes to motivate them. Soon I'll create a poll where you could leave your suggestion to enrich the blog.

Thank you

Yours Sincerely,
Gowdilyan.M