Premium economy isn’t really business class. The seats are the same width as economy and you don’t get the extra level of service you get in business. Just some extra legroom which I appreciate.
You do sometimes get meals but they’re the old standard inedible coach meals I mostly pass on.
Added: Wasn’t aware of mostly recent premium economy additions on some airlines. I was taking it as a synonym for Economy Plus.
There's a few hard/soft products that are grouped as premium economy.
On domestic flights there's "Comfort" seats, which give you more legroom (and free snacks and drinks on US domestic flights). On international flights "Comfort" seats still exist, but on some flights there's true premium economy, which does have wider seats (e.g. the A350 on Delta's fleet is 2-4-2 seating in premium economy vs 3-3-3 in coach).
You get better meal service (my experience on Delta is it's plated and brought out in a similar fashion to domestic first class) and domestic parts of the journey will sometimes book into first class.
Comfort pricing is usually $50-150 more per leg vs coach. Premium economy is usually somewhere in between coach and business, leaning a bit more towards the coach side.
BA premium economy has wider seats with more leg room as far as I can tell, the same food as club (ie. upgraded from economy), your own arm rests and better in flight entertainment (a larger screen).
This is also true of Virgin Atlantic. I generally fly long haul with them whenever I can and when I do I always fly Premium Economy. It's well worth the upgrade.
Has anyone told these airlines that these new class names are confusing branding nightmares. Premium Economy? Economy Plus? Economy Comfort? Which one’s better? Who knows?
Reminds me of the ol’ USB High Speed vs. USB Full Speed. I still don’t remember which one is faster.
I had to name the speed settings on an old 802.11 radio link. Started with 1-10MBit with names like standard speed, full speed, high speed. Added mega speed, hyper speed, ultra speed, mondo speed, maxi-speed, ludicrous speed to get to 200MBit.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a premium economy product on United and I fly 75K miles on them per year. There’s economy, economy plus, and either old-style business or, increasingly, Polaris even on domestic flights.
Added: Ah, haven’t seen it because it’s just starting to roll out on United.
It's a really new addition to United's offerings. I flew LAX-SYD in November on a United 787 and that plane only had Economy Plus/slightly more legroom.
That depends. For example, I fly Air New Zealand to and from Australia fairly frequently. AirNZ PE has more legroom, yes, but also fewer seats per row, wider seats and better meals. For a time they had the Spaceseats, which were 1-2-1 layout. That was great though the attendants told me they hated it since people had trouble with the tilt controls.
I've flown PEs more like yours but this seems to be a factor more of US domestic airlines and is certainly not universal.
Air NZ international PE is fantastic. Comfortable spacious seats and the same food as Business Premier. You basically only miss out on the lie flat bed and the fancy drinks.
You do sometimes get meals but they’re the old standard inedible coach meals I mostly pass on.
Added: Wasn’t aware of mostly recent premium economy additions on some airlines. I was taking it as a synonym for Economy Plus.