The Essentials

The End of First Class?

One by one, major airlines around the world are quietly eliminating the first class section.

Singapore Airlines is no longer selling first class tickets on most routes — and in fact, the airline won’t sell you a first class seat before next March.

 

El Al has ended first class.

 

Lufthansa has removed nearly all its first class inventory to the United States.

 

Qantas retired first class when it retired its A-380 aircraft.

 

And American Airlines, which continued its first class service on its transcontinental flights between New York and Los Angeles, saw very little first class traffic. It saw just frequent flyer upgrades on those flights in recent months and has now replaced its three-class airbus flights with Boeing 777 aircraft configured with only business and coach seats. The number of those flights just dropped from about 10 a day down to two.

 

Airfares on those remaining flights, at least for the moment, have nowhere to go but up!