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Comment by hbosch | Hacker News Reader

>And if you can afford business class [...] The meals are restaurant quality and the full recline?! I hardly want to disembark!

Let's settle down. This kind of biz class experience is almost certainly unique to international travel. Flying "business class" from ATL to SFO might get you a plate of microwave slop and an extra 15deg of incline on almost all domestic jets. Once in a blue moon you'll get a modern plane with the diagonal seats. One less person in the row, though.

Paying for business class domestically is almost always a sham by my experience.

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I was specifically thinking of my experience flying Emirates to the UAE :)

Other threads are discussing what range is actually practical or worthwhile. The article is very optimistic saying Australia can be a weekend trip. For me it's much more beneficial to cut a 16 hour flight in half than a 6 hour one. I don't really mind an itinerary 9 hrs or less, which includes all US domestic travel. But of course it will be different for a business commuter vs the occasional getaway.

ATL to SFO would almost certainly top out at first class, not business class. This is true of most all domestic routes. First class on international also just gets you the 15 degrees and 1 or 2 fewer chairs per row, it's business that gets you the lie downs and such.

The food will probably still be worse than a first class international flight though. Not as many people paying as much and not enough air time to really force all of them to want to eat airplane food in the first place.

> First class on international also just gets you the 15 degrees and 1 or 2 fewer chairs per row, it's business that gets you the lie downs and such.

This is not my experience at all. First class is better than business class on international (and domestic, of course, though relatively few domestic routes have true three cabin service [counting all the slightly different economy levels as one cabin]).

For ATL<->SFO the directs are Delta, Frontier, and United:

Frontier doesn't have a business class nor long haul international flights (they are an ultra-low cost carrier).

Delta calls their highest tier "Delta One" their business class offering. It's mostly available in mid & long haul international flights, though there are a few select domestic routes with it IIRC. A tier below is First, which is available for both domestic and international flights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines#Cabin:~:text=D...

United's highest is called "Polaris", representing their international business class. Confusingly, they have "United First and United Business" as the next class. I.e. it's the same class but on domestic flights they call it "United First" and on international flights the same seat would be sold as "United Business" despite having Polaris for that already. Regardless of that oddity, the First class can't be higher than itself named Business class even compared directly instead of with the actual business class Polaris - it's the same seat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines#Cabins:~:text=....

Other airlines label and order things differently of course. E.g. American has Flagship First above Flagship Business above First/Business (shared much like United on that 3rd class) and maybe that's where your experience is. To my knowledge though, no such airlines operate the ATL<->SFO route originally described though.

Can you find any three-cabin service where First class is the middle tier of cabin? (In a two-cabin service, whether the one that's not economy is called Business or First is not helpful in determining whether business or first is higher; we both agree they're better than economy.)

Here are airlines offering three-cabin services on a single aircraft where First is the highest tier:

Air France - La Première (First), Business, Economy

American Airlines - First, Business, Economy

Cathay Pacific - First, Business, Economy

Emirates - First Class suites, Business Class, and Economy

Etihad - First Class private suites, Business, Economy

Japan Airlines - First, Business, Economy

Lufthansa - First, Business, Economy

Happily, here's one from Delta as I described above https://i.imgur.com/wwYQXy1.png. Sadly (for me, at least), I've never flown above "First" on such a configuration from Delta though :). Like you had noted, they call it 4 cabin classes... but the economy classes ("Main" & "Comfort") are both treated as a single cabin in terms of service and the difference in economy seats is an inch or two of leg room. So it's really a 3 cabin of: business, first, economy.

Again, hbosch said ATL<->SFO... and you aren't going to be flying Air France or Japan Airlines for that route. My list, as far as I'm aware, was exhaustive for that route. It was not a cherry picked search of airlines which do it that way or global claim of what all other airlines do, only a response to the particular claim. On other routes/airlines the statement could, or rather "would", certainly have been true. Honestly, I think those airlines have it the right way around, but, having flown the exact route and the same airlines internationally, it did not match my experience for the route - which agreed with the labeling for all airlines for that route according to the links above. Unless, perhaps I'm missing that American or similar does actually have a ATL<->SFO to be compared with?

Where is the label of “first” anywhere in that image or in Delta marketing on that flight?

It literally says "first" in the upper right hand corner of the image indicating the red seats, which are clearly not as nice as the purple seats, aka Delta One?

That is a composite image, with screenshots from two different pages (and I'm virtually certain from two different flights), not a legend of the seating chart and a seating chart.

I can't find an ATL-SFO flight offering Premium Select and in fact couldn't find a domestic Premium Select flight at all, but on flights where I can find Premium Select, such as BOS-AMS on May 10, 2026, here is the fare selection screenshot from that flight, and the seating chart screenshot, including the legend on a single page:

https://imgur.com/a/Nz1FxOT

Notably, neither of those use red for "First Class" and there's no confusion between trying to use a legend from one page/flight as a key to understand a seating chart on a different page/flight. In fact, they both use red for "Premium Select" and booking Premium Select on that flight gives you a fare class of "A", which is specific to Premium Select (and NOT to First Class/Delta One, which share J, C, D, I, and Z, because Delta One is just a branding of First Class, rather than a cabin distinct from first class).

Delta fare class codes: https://www.nerdwallet.com/travel/learn/delta-fare-classes

I'm not saying that there was a specific intent to deceive with that prior imgur link, but I think the end effect was deceptive.

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