no one needs to fly business class, and the marginal benefits of extra legroom and early boarding are so not worth the 2x or 3x ticket price
If all you want is extra legroom, you can get an exit-row seat for much less. Early boarding isn’t worth very much unless you’re traveling with a carry-on that can’t be checked (ex: musical instrument) and there are cheaper ways to get it. I see the real benefit of business class as (a) a more comfortable place to work or (b) arriving better rested, especially if it gets you a lay-flat seat on an overnight flight. Personally, this isn’t a trade-off that has made sense for me, but I can see cases where it would be worth it if it gives you essentially an extra working day.
FWIW I’ve been trying to fly business class for transatlantic flights for a few years for these reasons. I think it’s an usually big effect size for me because otherwise long haul flights play badly with my chronic fatigue and can cost me effectively >1 day, but I expect that many people would get a few hours’ worth of extra productive time (I take advantage of both the lie-flat bed and the good work environment for writing that doesn’t need internet).
I’ve felt weird about expensing it so mostly just been paying for it myself (I don’t have many other big expenses in my life except childcare), but I have noticed that I’m sometimes wanting to make a strong recommendation that a particular other person try to fly business class, and offered to pay for it personally because I think this will help significantly more than what I can otherwise do with my donations. So I seem to be at “we should probably do a bit more of this at the margin”.
Yeah I think it’s a very different calculation if your flight is up to 24 hours long. Also you can only take an exit row seat if you have the (physical) capacity to help in an emergency (e.g. can’t be flying solo with kids or elderly relatives, you have to be able to throw 20kg at a time, can’t have certain other impairments, have to be able to understand the language of the relevant country and so on), so I don’t know how scalable a suggestion that is.
If all you want is extra legroom, you can get an exit-row seat for much less. Early boarding isn’t worth very much unless you’re traveling with a carry-on that can’t be checked (ex: musical instrument) and there are cheaper ways to get it. I see the real benefit of business class as (a) a more comfortable place to work or (b) arriving better rested, especially if it gets you a lay-flat seat on an overnight flight. Personally, this isn’t a trade-off that has made sense for me, but I can see cases where it would be worth it if it gives you essentially an extra working day.
FWIW I’ve been trying to fly business class for transatlantic flights for a few years for these reasons. I think it’s an usually big effect size for me because otherwise long haul flights play badly with my chronic fatigue and can cost me effectively >1 day, but I expect that many people would get a few hours’ worth of extra productive time (I take advantage of both the lie-flat bed and the good work environment for writing that doesn’t need internet).
I’ve felt weird about expensing it so mostly just been paying for it myself (I don’t have many other big expenses in my life except childcare), but I have noticed that I’m sometimes wanting to make a strong recommendation that a particular other person try to fly business class, and offered to pay for it personally because I think this will help significantly more than what I can otherwise do with my donations. So I seem to be at “we should probably do a bit more of this at the margin”.
Yeah I think it’s a very different calculation if your flight is up to 24 hours long. Also you can only take an exit row seat if you have the (physical) capacity to help in an emergency (e.g. can’t be flying solo with kids or elderly relatives, you have to be able to throw 20kg at a time, can’t have certain other impairments, have to be able to understand the language of the relevant country and so on), so I don’t know how scalable a suggestion that is.