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Jersey European: ‘Ticket to Freedom’ offers three business-class return trips for the price of two with big savings on Gatwick Express club class fares

There’s something very satisfying about boarding an aircraft and turning left. The curtains part and you’re greeted by a member of cabin crew. There are acres of space, your seat is wide and comfy, and you can stretch your legs without risk of knocking into the seat in front.

It’s the perfect environment in which to prepare for a business meeting, catch up on some sleep or simply sit back and enjoy being looked after. That’s the theory, anyway, and over the past few years most major airlines have examined ways of ensuring that once you’ve experienced the front cabin, you’re not going to settle for anything less in the future.

As well as constantly trying to improve the service that’s on offer, airlines are increasingly using loyalty programmes to improve repeat business. And if you do travel the same route or use the same airline regularly, then the points, miles or credits you build up usually make significant contributions to other journeys. But is it this, or the simple comfort of a big seat with lots of leg room, that’s bringing executives back up front in their droves?

Results of a survey commissioned last year by business travel agent Carlson Wagonlit Travel identified that a large number of companies have a policy which governs the class of business travel for executives. Some 72 per cent of bookers said their firm had a company policy, with 47 per cent saying class of business travel was dependent on their position in a company.

It also suggested that the practice of downgrading class of travel, which was very common four or five years ago, appears to have ended. “The findings of the survey were encouraging,” says Carlson Wagonlit Travel managing director Richard Lovell.

So the customers are there, ready to pay the high price of in-flight luxury. But what have the airlines done to lure them back, and more importantly, how will they keep them there in the future?

Geoff Turner is a marketing consultant to BSS, a supplier of camera and surveillance equipment to the broadcast and police sectors worldwide. In the past year, he has made eight visits to the US, one to Mexico City, five to Singapore and numerous shorter trips to European destinations, during which he has found himself variously in first, business and economy class. “I invariably use British Airways,” he says. “The new Club World is my number one, although I tried out its first class to Mexico City, which was fantastic in terms of the service on offer.

“Travel used to be a novelty, and it was great to make a point of noticing every little extra provided by the airlines for premium fare passengers. Now it’s different, as I’m always tired and usually needing to make notes from one meeting before dashing into another. Therefore, my needs are simple: good lounge access, a really comfortable seat, and some guarantee of privacy, peace and quiet when I’m on board.”

Prior to launching its new Club World, BA undertook a great deal of innovative research. One major piece of work gave participating customers a list of service options and a total of 100 points which they could allocate according to their individual priorities.

“The need for a really comfortable seat was top of many travellers’ agenda,” says BA Club World brand manager Mark Gilmour. “The list embraced features as diverse as on-board snack facilities, extra air miles and access to arrivals lounges.

“Flying Club World, or any executive class, is an investment people make: it should pay off when you arrive at the end of your journey in the best possible shape, ready to do business,” adds Gilmour.

The concept of a separate business cabin goes back for BA to the early Eighties, when Superclub was launched, offering a bigger seat for the business-class customer. However, there was no brand identity which made the service very easy to replicate. “What we learned was that business class had to be something of a unique proposition,” says Gilmour. “Club World was born in the late Eighties but the 1996 look to the service is very different.”

Club World traffic grew by a massive 40 per cent on BA’s key routes to Los Angeles during the same time. But while other airlines have seen this trend as the impetus to merge first class and business class into one executive cabin, BA has stuck to the three-class system. First-class traffic on some key routes has enjoyed 33 per cent growth.

One of the many airlines opting for a two-class configuration was Northwest, whose World Business Class achieved a 90 per cent-plus load factor in the first few months’ operation of its Gatwick to Detroit service last year. “There are no compromises about World Business,” says Northwest’s London-based corporate communications manager Sue Major. “The service includes all the usual lounge and in-flight service benefits, as well as a 48-inch seat pitch on board, free collection by limousine, a night at the Gatwick Hilton or the Copthorne prior to departure, and the major incentives offered by the WorldPerks loyalty programme.

“A World Business Class traveller making six round trips to Detroit qualifies for a free trans-Atlantic economy class ticket to any US or Canada destination through WorldPerks, as well as a host of other benefits offered by Northwest and its partner airline KLM,” adds Major.

The rewards for purchasing a business-class seat are clearly summed up by Turner. “I have seen the BA service change from something that mirrored the ‘dog-eat-dog’ business environment of six or seven years ago to a service that tries to be more like home,” he explains.

For those of us usually restricted to what’s often politely called “the main cabin”, the idea of a business seat and service is very attractive. But travelling first class for the novice could prove exhausting – surely one would not dare fall asleep for fear of missing a wonderful aspect of the service. For the seasoned first-class passenger, however, sleep is what it’s all about according to BA’s First Class brand manager Jane Bednall.

“We tried to find out as much as possible about sleep patterns, including how much we turn over when we’re asleep. Overcoming the usual airline difficulty of waking up every time we turn has been a fundamental factor in the installation of the new virtually private cabins in First. These convert into beds, and with the privacy of the new screens, the chances of a long uninterrupted period of sleep are maximised.”

But what goes on at 35,000 feet is not always the prime motivation for choosing a seat up front. Barney Burnham pays for his own travel, yet still elects to fork out for a premium fare, based partly on the fact that Virgin won the prestigious Best Executive Class category of the 1996 Airline of the Year awards, and partly on the future benefits his ticket can bring. “A Virgin Upper Class return to Boston costs a little over 2,100 but for this I can make three return journeys to a European destination using any of Virgin’s partner airlines,” he explains.

Group travel organisers usually procure discounts for business and first-class seats, especially if they have parties of more than 50 delegates heading to the other side of the world.

Nicky Shaw is incentive travel manager for Capital World Travel; for her, it’s the behind-the-scenes attitude shown by airline sales offices as much as the in-flight service offer that determines where she puts her business. “Ninety per cent of the time it’s with BA,” she says. “But sometimes insurance regulations mean we have to split a group, in which case we choose two airlines.

“Our experience has pointed to Singapore Airlines as top of the class for its background approach and attention to detail. It also won an Airline of the Year award for the comfort of its departure lounges,” says Shaw. “The attitude of staff in the sales office is very important, and one other vital factor is how members of a group are treated in the air. This is where BA scores as the feedback we’ve had points to them feeling not like a group but more as individuals, which is very important, especially when the flight itself is part of the incentive.”

On short haul too, the airlines have appreciated that there’s a lot of money to be made from business passengers willing to pay for an enhanced service. Finnair, for instance, recently acquired the London Gatwick to Stockholm and Helsinki service from Transwede, and immediately introduced a business-class service which includes new benefits such as limousine transfer and complimentary hotel accommodation in Stockholm. The airline’s efforts have been rewarded by business-class occupancy levels of more than 90 per cent.

British Midland and Jersey European both operate a business-class service, so even on the very short routes it’s possible to savour some of the benefits of a premium fare.

Jersey European, which is relaunching its business-class product, pays a lot of attention to this premium-fare front cabin. Not only have passenger figures reflected the demand for business class, accounting for more than a third of all passengers travelling with the airline, but also by the airline’s continued investment into business-friendly jets over the past three years.

Jersey European has shown those ancillary business benefits are not the exclusive preserve of long-haul carriers. “The ‘Ticket to Freedom’ scheme offers three business-class return trips for the price of two, there’s an executive lounge at Gatwick with similar facilities on the way at Belfast City, Jersey and Guernsey, and substantial savings on Gatwick Express club class fares,” says JEA’s Georgie Lamb.

However, the real winners appear to be those executives with a long way to travel, not enough spare hours to adjust to new time zones, and considerable pressure to do the business and get back to the office as quickly as possible. That’s when paying upwards of five times the standard economy-class fare appears to be the best investment.