Business Traveller 2010 Airline Survey

Value for money like never before

Although airlines cannot afford to improve the seats, they have no choice

AIRLINES HAVE never been much good at making money, and this year they have lost more than ever. Over-capacity was making things difficult for them even before the downturn, along with the high price of oil, and just as the price of fuel dropped, so did demand.

In the short-term, this is good news for travellers. Prices have dropped for tickets in all cabins, and there are more airlines than ever flying to more destinations with greater frequency and at lower prices. In addition, the onboard product - the seats - keeps improving. Airlines are engaged in a fight to the death, and although they cannot afford to improve the seats when flyers are paying less for them, the competition means they have no choice.

So what was new this year? Well, as expected, the airlines of the Gulf kept spending.

Etihad's already impressive first class product was only three years old, but it decided to start replacing its seats with suites.

Qatar Airways concentrated on introducing impressive fully-flat beds in business class on its ultra-long-haul B777-200LR fleet to serve destinations in the US from its Doha hub, and Emirates continued to retrofit its fleet, as well as take delivery of new A380-800 superjumbos (the ones with showers on board for first class passengers). And lastly, Oman Air received its first new three-class A330s, installed with fully-flat beds in business.

To show how spending continued even when the money wasn't there, consider the US airlines. United Airlines is now fully-flat on many of its transatlantic routes into Europe, as is Delta. Continental Airlines and US Airways are following them.

British Airways, after delaying the roll-out of its new First product, is now saying it will be flying before Christmas.

The carrier also launched a rarefied new service between London City and New York JFK using the short-haul A318 aircraft. Configured with only 32 fully-flat business class seats, it is termed London City Club World to distinguish it from BA's existing Club World business class offering.

WHY NO MARK OUT OF TEN?

We fly on dozens of different aircraft and airlines each year, in different cabins, on different sectors, so why couldn't we have awarded a mark out of ten? There are a number of reasons, but most practically because the results would have been so subjective as to be useless. In the office we range from five-foot tall females weighing 50kg to six-foot, two-inch males weighing ... considerably more.

The size you are makes a difference to everything - legroom (known here as seat pitch), the comfort of the seat width, and the configuration (the number of seats fitted across the width of an aircraft). It also affects the way you respond to the recline of the seat, particularly in business class - some passengers can make themselves comfortable in angled lie-flat seats (ie the flat seats that are not parallel to the floor) while others find that cradle-style seats give them more support. It depends so much on personal shape and preference.

So for that reason we have just presented you with the figures - along with some explanation to make the various ways airlines measure their seats a bit clearer - to let you make up your own mind.

SO WHO'S THE BEST?

That's for you to decide. We've said why we don't give a mark out of ten but we are asking you to do the exact opposite, and we're even offering prizes for the most informative review each month. So far we have details of more than 120 airlines on seatplans.com with new airlines being added every month, so please submit your review.

HOW WE WORK IT OUT

PLANE TYPE AND CLASS
This year we have arranged the survey by airline to allow you to compare products in each class across the whole fleet. We have included short-, medium- and long-haul aircraft, and measurements for the seats found in each of the classes on board.

SEAT CONFIGURATION
This refers to the way the seats are arranged across the aircraft. At first you might think this is a little too much detail to go into, but you may change your mind once you are halfway into a long-haul flight and realise that on a different aircraft, or with a different airline, you could have had a seat where you didn't have to climb over the person next to you to get to the washroom.

SEAT PITCH
This is the distance between seats, measured from a fixed point on one seat to the same point on the one in front. The exact point differs from airline to airline, but note that new seats often have thinner cushions so offer more room, despite the seat pitch measurement remaining unaltered.

SEAT WIDTH
Far more complicated than you might think. Airlines obtain seat width either by measuring the seat cushion, or between the armrests, or in some examples, from the outside of one armrest to the outside of the other (using the justification that the seat cushion is this wide).

SEAT LENGTH
A measurement for fully-flat seats only. This is when the seat pitch becomes redundant - the length of your fully-flat bed is what matters.

RECLINE
This can be measured in a number of different ways - from horizontal, 90° upright or the take-off position

SEAT TYPE
This mainly depends on how far a seat reclines.

INDIVIDUAL SCREEN AND SIZE
With more airlines installing personal screens, it can be a shock to discover one that hasn't. But the screen size can differ significantly.

AUDIO-VIDEO ON-DEMAND
AVOD in-flight entertainment - the ability to stop, start, rewind and pause what you want to see, when you want to see it - is becoming a must have feature across the classes. If it's not installed, the system will probably run on a continuous loop, so if you miss the start of a film you have to wait for it to come round to the beginning again.

POWER SOURCE
We asked the airlines to let us know which sort of in-seat power source they offered, be it UK, EU or US.