Possibly I’m the one one who finds this attention-grabbing, however I did a bit of quantity crunching simply now on one thing I’ve been inquisitive about, and figured I’d share the outcomes.
Worldwide top notch is the head of economic aviation. Some airline executives argue it’s a dying product, whereas others argue that it’s as sizzling as ever, and value investing in.
Simply to be completely clear, let me emphasize that I’m speaking about worldwide, three cabin (and even 4 cabin, if there’s premium economic system) top notch, and I’m not speaking about home top notch inside the US, which is usually marketed as such (that creates numerous confusion amongst these from different international locations).
At present there are a complete of 24 airways across the globe providing worldwide top notch merchandise. So whereas I’ve often ranked the world’s prime top notch airways and prime top notch lounges, which airways even have the most important top notch footprints? In different phrases, what number of top notch seats are put in on the plane of airways with top notch?
I’ve completed some quantity crunching, basically determining what number of planes at an airline have top notch, and what number of whole top notch seats there are within the fleet. Whereas I be ok with my math, let me emphasize that some individuals may quibble with me barely on a few of these factors. For instance:
- To what extent ought to parked planes issue into the maths? Some planes are parked long run, some are present process short-term upkeep, and many others.
- What precisely is the capability of top notch on some airways? Is the capability for Lufthansa Allegris A350 top notch three or 4, for instance, and what about Korean Air’s planes with top notch seats, however the place top notch is not constantly being bought?
So with acknowledgement that individuals may disagree with me barely, right here’s the maths on what number of bodily top notch seats you’ll discover on the airways that supply this product (sorted by the variety of top notch seats):
- Emirates has 201 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of two,214 seats
- British Airways has 76 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 680 seats
- Korean Air has 35 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 294 seats
- Lufthansa has 41 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 283 seats
- SWISS has 30 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 240 seats
- Air China has 25 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 220 seats
- Singapore Airways has 34 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 160 seats
- American Airways has 20 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 160 seats
- Japan Airways has 20 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 140 seats
- Qantas has 10 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 140 seats
- All Nippon Airways has 16 planes with top notch seats, with a complete capability of 128 seats
- China Japanese has 20 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 120 seats
- Etihad Airways has 14 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 114 seats
- Air India has 19 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 100 seats
- Qatar Airways has 14 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 100 seats
- Saudia has eight planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 96 seats
- TAAG Angola Airways has eight planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 94 seats
- Air France has 21 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 84 seats
- Kuwait Airways has 10 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 80 seats
- Cathay Pacific has 13 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 78 seats
- Starlux Airways has 10 planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 40 seats
- Xiamen Air has six planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 24 seats
- Thai Airways has three planes with top notch, with a complete capability of 24 seats
- Garuda Indonesia has one airplane with top notch, with a complete capability of eight seats
What ought to we make of those numbers?
As you possibly can see, Emirates has — by far — the world’s largest top notch footprint. It’s not even shut, and Emirates has greater than 3 times as many top notch seats because the second largest provider in that regard. Talking of Emirates top notch:
- The huge top notch footprint additionally explains why the primary class floor expertise usually doesn’t really feel very personalised, and the primary class lounge is the dimensions of your entire concourse
- The amount of top quality wine and caviar served in top notch is solely subsequent degree, since we’re probably speaking about many hundreds of passengers per day
- Emirates actually has an extremely excessive commonplace for its top notch delicate product when you think about simply how huge of an operation that is
I believe one other airline price calling out is SWISS. It’s the one airline on this planet to have top notch on all of its lengthy haul plane, with no exceptions. That’s a formidable degree of consistency.
Air France maybe presents the world’s highest high quality top notch product, and positively probably the most spectacular floor expertise of any airline. It’s not shocking that it is a far more boutique operation, since Air France’s top notch footprint is lower than 4% that of Emirates.
Backside line
As a lot as some airline executives argue in opposition to the deserves of worldwide top notch, the product is alive and properly for a lot of airways, and in some conditions, is even increasing. It’s fairly unbelievable how the dimensions of top notch fleets varies between airways.
Emirates deserves a shoutout for providing, by far, probably the most top notch seats of any airline, with over 2,000 of those seats in its fleet. In the meantime SWISS deserves credit score for consistency, and having top notch on all lengthy haul flights. In the meantime Garuda Indonesia deserves credit score for having the world’s most unique top notch, obtainable on a single airplane. 😉
Do any of those top notch statistics shock you?
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