I wonder how much this is a US/UK thing because of the types of flights people are taking. My assumption is that in the US the vast majority of flights are domestic, and I’d agree that business class just isn’t worth it on those planes (aside from the length of the flight, the planes are also not that nice!). The equivalent would be UK-Europe flights, for which business class definitely doesn’t seem worth it. But most UK travel in my experience ends up being very long haul, normally transatlantic — and on those, business class is clearly much, much better than economy because you get a lie-flat bed. And on a night flight (especially coming back from the US), that can be the difference between sleeping or not, and that then gets you an extra day of work when you land.
I wonder how much this is a US/UK thing because of the types of flights people are taking. My assumption is that in the US the vast majority of flights are domestic, and I’d agree that business class just isn’t worth it on those planes (aside from the length of the flight, the planes are also not that nice!). The equivalent would be UK-Europe flights, for which business class definitely doesn’t seem worth it. But most UK travel in my experience ends up being very long haul, normally transatlantic — and on those, business class is clearly much, much better than economy because you get a lie-flat bed. And on a night flight (especially coming back from the US), that can be the difference between sleeping or not, and that then gets you an extra day of work when you land.