Pursuits
Premium Economy Arrives on U.S. Airlines. Will Coach Suffer?
For a few hundred bucks more, you can pretend you’re in business class.
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As space in economy class becomes ever more constrained, airlines have devised a more spacious cabin product for passengers priced out of business class but determined to escape the indignities of steerage.
Called “premium economy,” this section of added frills between coach and business aims to address a widening gap that has emerged between those cabins—and to extract more money from passengers. The premium economy cabin has been a staple of large international airlines for several years but is just now beginning to appear on American carriers.