However well organized your holiday is the flight is always tedious. Simon Calder has been investigating ways to get more leg room…
How do you get more leg room?
It is getting easier. A lot of the charter flights are now doing things differently, particularly for long haul flights, and have put in more legroom than some of the scheduled airlines. Well worth finding out what the possibilities are in terms of your chosen destination and choosing one of the companies that have decided to give customers more comfort.
So there is no extra charge for that?
In general you will probably find that they may cost just a little more but consider that money well spent. More airlines are giving customers option to reserve extra leg room seats, typically on short hauls flights for about £15, long haul maybe £50, to be able to stretch your legs during your flight.
What about wider seats for ‘larger’ passengers?
This is an increasing problem and airlines are coping with this by gradually expanding the amount of room available. Find out about your aircraft- 737 are narrower, airbuses have wider cabins so the seats tend to be wider. But a lot of people who are in this position may pay extra, not to necessarily to fly business class or first, but to go for something better than the basic economy and that is where the new premium economy classes are coming in. These are often on charter carriers and on scheduled airlines- the idea is that you pay a little bit more i.e. flights to Florida will be around £99 each way. On a scheduled airline going long-haul you will often find it is an extra £150 per sector- this means that if you were flying London, Singapore, Sydney you would pay for each. In this case a lot of people would just do this on the way back or upgrade to premium on the longer flights. Unfortunately the latest air passenger duty rise means that if you’re traveling in premium economy you are now paying £80 in air passenger duty to leave the UK on a scheduled flight to a long-haul destination.
So premium economy is considered by the government to be the same as club class or business class?
Yes anything better than basic. This actually goes into a new genre of flying - business class only jets. These have started springing up in the past year or so, flying the Atlantic only at the moment out of Stansted and Luton going to New York and other US destinations, and because there is only one class everyone pays the lower rate of air passenger duty- £40. This has certainly expanded the range of options.
So do the prices pan out with buying club class on the scheduled flights?
It all depends. Typically you are looking at as little as £1000 for traveling there and back in club class standards. They are variable- some just give wide seat and recline, other provide a flat bed. Great thing is that competition is so good in travel and the arrival of these facilities has meant that the established scheduled airlines are selling services more aggressively and bringing in good fares for people who don’t mind committing to specific flights. The closer you get to the Christmas and New Year the more the prices converge, so for example if you are flying to Sydney and back an economy fare will be £1500 or more, yet at the same time the demand for business travel at that time is relatively low so you may get a business class seat for £2000. So the extra difference for all that extra comfort is really not very much.
Some of the content of the magazine refers to flights or prices from the UK. At Travel Counsellors Ireland we can source flights from Ireland and provide full quotes in Euros. Please call me for latest availability and prices.
