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© Tom Mascardo 3

According to airline industry body IATA international first class flights have been hit by the Japanese nuclear crisis, slumping world trade and the turmoil in the Middle East.

At the same time, economy class travel has seen a rebound, but it may not last as fuel costs surge and price increases weigh on demand from tourists who are more sensitive to cost. In April the premium-travel market shrank by 1.3%, and was running at less than half its 2010 growth rate. Much of this weakness was attributed to the combination of fall-out from the Japanese crisis and Middle Eastern turmoil, but the IATA noted that business confidence world wide seems to have taken a hit. They expected the softness in premium travel to extend throughout the second quarter as well.

© Sarah_Ackerman

American Airlines is upgrading the in-flight entertainment options on first class flights by offering travelers Samsung Galaxy Tabs. This is further evidence that the iPad no longer rules the tablet market in the same way it used to. The announcement follows on the heels of new in-flight streaming video service, and the company said they seek to add around 6,000 tablets on certain US and international routes.

The main difference is that the streaming in-flight video technology has been made available to all passengers, while the tablets are for first class only. Transcontinental flights will be some of the first to get the new tablets, and flights to Europe and Latin America are also at the top of the list. The first Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices will be introduced later this year, most likely following the summer season.

© schuey

The largest-spending companies are more likely to allow business class flight and require bookings through designated travel management companies and/or online booking tools, recent research revealed, based on an April-May survey of travel managers in the United States and Canada. Across all respondents, 31 percent allow business class flight to Europe. For flights to all geographies, the largest-spending companies are more likely to authorize business class flight than smaller spenders, according to the report.
Overall, two-thirds of the 73 percent of companies that had updated travel policies in the past two years restricted business class flight. Researchers determined that "the premium charged by airlines for upgrading to first class flight in the U.S. and business class flight internationally averaged 223 percent more than economy class on a basket of domestic and international airfares."