As part of the Deals-on-Travel.co.uk travel team, I often receive emails asking questions about either British Airways or Virgin Atlantic Airlines premium economy seats in comparison to regular economy seats. In other words, is it worth paying the extra money for premium economy? The short answer is “maybe”, let me explain.
I’ve heard people complaining about the cost at the time of booking as they hand over their hard earned cash to the travel agent for their Premium Economy seats. However, I think it would be fair to say that I doubt too many complain on the day of their flight.
In my experience, I’ve found that Virgin Atlantic premium economy is a better product than its British Airways counterpart. So, I’ll discuss The Virgin Atlantic offering from here on.
Before you even get on board the plane, you can experience the first advantage of flying premium economy when you first arrive at the airport; at the check in there will be a separate desk for premium economy, so you’ll be able to avoid those long economy cabin queues.
Once on board and although aircraft types differ, the most common plane that Virgin Atlantic use on their US routes is the Boeing 747. Usually on the 747, the main premium economy cabin is upstairs, which is where other airlines seat their business class passengers. The advantage of this is that its a small comfortable space having somewhere in the region of 40 seats. So, you’ll immediately notice that you’re not sitting amongst three hundred other people, so the noise levels are considerably lower. The seats are bigger, not hugely so, but definitely wider and the seat pitch, (the distance between the seats) is substantially longer. As far as I’m aware the food is the same but it’s served on slightly better trays, or at least that was my impression on my Orlando flight last month.
When it comes to landing, you are also allowed off the plane before the economy passengers and on entering the USA, where you can often spend an hour in line to clear immigration, that’s an important factor. Finally, when you’re through immigration, you should find that your bags are on a different baggage carousel as upper class and premium economy bags use a separate carrousel to Virgin Holidays economy passengers, so your bag should be available for collection more quickly.
So back to the original question, is it worth the extra money. Well, if you can comfortably afford the extra 50% to 60% you’ll be paying for the privilege of flying premium economy then the answer is a resounding YES. I fly to the states about three time each year and whenever I can, I fly premium economy.