The High Life

The pipsqueak bag of nuts lands on your tray, joined by the complimentary slurp of soda. The reclined seat in front of you begins a rhythmic bounce. The tapping feet behind you are on round 10 of “My Sharona.” With a sigh, you lean out into the aisle and gaze longingly through the first-class curtain. . . . Is that the aroma of freshly cooked garlic up there? Are those real linen napkins? And was that Pauly Shore they just called sir?

Because most of us fly in the back of the plane, we can’t help wondering who’s up front, what they’re getting and how much they paid for it.

This summer’s tiff at 30,000 feet between the preacher and the steward has simply renewed our interest.

The Rev. Robert Schuller and United Airlines flight attendant Khaled Elabiad have staged dueling news conferences since the incident in late June. To avoid trial on federal charges of assault, the Garden Grove preacher apologized “if” he did anything to upset the crew member, who has claimed Schuller shook him after being refused all the grapes in the plane.

While debate resumes over who provoked the first-class fracas, we had a few other questions.

1. Is the worst that happens in first class that you can’t get an offending cheese removed from your plate or hang your robe wherever? (Schuller requested both).

2. How much more does it cost to be served free highballs by people who have memorized your name?

3. Are the first-class seats really as roomy as Homer Simpson’s Barcalounger, or are they more akin to the coach legroom experience requiring a modified fetal position?

Once the domain of the rich and those with liberal expense accounts, first class now is routinely open to even coach tourists, thanks to airline mileage programs.

American Express estimates that 8.8% of airline passengers within, to and from the U.S. fly first class. But airlines are not telling how many of these passengers are paying full first-class fare. Insiders believe those who do pay rarely are spending their own money. There can be thousands of dollars in the balance.

“Unless you’re wealthy or your company’s paying for it or the ‘Today’ show is flying you out or you just don’t care about money, first class is not worth the cost,” says Marty Salfen, senior vice president of the International Airline Passengers Assn., which has 400,000 members in 150 countries.

Who buys those tickets?

“Attorneys on cases fly first class, some companies allow their top executives to fly first class . . . a lot of contract people like consultants, speakers, actors, actresses. Anyone on a talk show, that’s all first class.”

Lawyers and the guests of Jerry Springer--what an image.

While some see this democracy in the skies as a good thing, others wish a little more class awareness could be restored in the skies.

“Few in the American airline business even begin to understand what real service, let alone first class, means. . . . And then they introduced ‘rewards’ programs, which forever changed the quality of the first-class experience,” Ted Carter, editor in chief of Biztravel.com, wrote in an opinion piece for the Web site.

“Me, I’ll stick to the likes of Singapore Airlines, British Airways, or friends with Gulf Streams--enjoyable miles for which each has been fully paid.”

Carter later admitted by phone that the piece was written to provoke, and that--whether you get there with dough or with miles earned--his bigger gripe would be that first class is not what it used to be.

Basically, he added, the countries with a more pronounced class structure produce better commercial airline service.

“It is true that in some European airlines there is a sense of class distinction. In the United States, we are all born equal, and that’s the way it goes. In England, they respect class distinction. So they treat some [people] as aristocracy.”

The British seem to have the upper hand on the best first-class service, say travel observers such as Ed Perkins, editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, based in San Francisco.

He said the trend in the industry seems to be toward adding amenities in first class while “essentially doing nothing” for coach travelers.

And international first class, he said, is the poshest.

What do you get there?

With Virgin Atlantic, the transatlantic first-class experience starts at your front door if you are traveling from Heathrow in London. A limo will fetch and deliver you to the airport. Later this year, all flights out of L.A. and San Francisco will offer complimentary in-flight beauty treatments.

This month, the airline announced it has ordered a fleet of airbuses that will serve top-drawer passengers with private bedrooms, double beds, showers, lounge and gym. Debut date: 2002.

Traveling abroad on British Airways’ Boeing 747 is widely viewed as the ritziest of international airline travel--if you don’t fly the Concorde or your own plane.

Say you are going to London. Prepare to spend a lot more than your coach ticket of about $1,100. First class runs $10,000.

Once aboard, expect that you will have a good 6 feet of legroom--fairly standard in first class, travel industry sources say. That’s compared with coach, where typically find no more than 35 inches between your seat and the next.

Stretch out flat, if you like, in the “seat” created by yacht designers. You are in your own mini-cabin, with partial privacy screening in pear wood finish and your own retractable entertainment center, plus a guest seat for visitors.

When you are ready for a snooze, your electronically adjustable seat folds out into a 6-foot-6 bed where you can wear complimentary pajamas and tuck under a duvet or tartan blanket. There are two double mini-cabins for couples.

A nonstop parade of food and spirits is offered for the duration of your flight. Cocktails and canapes arrive first, followed by this typical menu: selection of smoked salmon, grilled Mediterranean vegetables with fresh herbs, salad and a choice of entrees.

With this kind of treatment, do many people actually complain? You bet. Airlines and their passengers stress that the cabin of any airplane is primarily brawl-free, with tolerant and well-behaved travelers--and attendants.

But, with on-board personal space shrinking and fewer flight attendants assigned per passenger, testiness seems more common.

“There are some personalities that feel that [entitlement] everywhere they go,” said Mary Ann Faubert of Newport Beach, a TWA flight attendant for 26 years, now retired. “A seasoned traveler knows that people usually do the best they can do.”

Well-behaved passengers are the norm, not the exception, said Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant Ka’imi Lee, a 13-year veteran based in Los Angeles.

One distinct difference he’s noticed among first-class passengers: more of them travel with nannies.

Most of the first-class passengers he serves have paid full fare, Lee said, but he points out that the L.A. to Honolulu route is unique and traveled primarily by vacationers.

One of them requested something that was not on the menu: fresh lobster, which the traveler assumed would be kept live in a tank on board, in case someone such as himself desired it at 36,000 feet.

A woman once dropped her keys down the first-class lavatory. When he said how sorry he was to hear that, she looked at him pointedly and said: “Aaaaand?”

Lee laughed at the memory. “She wanted me to get them. I said, ‘I don’t go there.’ Sometimes no is the proper response.”

Maybe we just remember them better because they are celebrities, but the prominent seem to have a reputation for being more demanding than the rest of us.

“Some of the most difficult people to deal with on an airplane are people who consider themselves celebrities,” said a Continental Airlines pilot awaiting a flight at John Wayne Airport. “They can be very demanding. Some are great people, but a lot of them are consumed with themselves.”

The pilot said most first-class passengers are business people, and in his 27 years as a pilot he has yet to have one of them get out of hand during a flight.

Retired attendant Faubert does recall dueling celebrities.

“One would try and outdo the other for attention” from the crew, she said.

“I had an Arab prince on at the same time as Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton. We were told by the State Department that the Arab prince was someone the State Department was courting [and] to address him by ‘Your Royal Highness.’

“Well, she [had] married a prince, and she also had a title. She would get enraged that we would call him by his title and not use hers.”

In a country that still views class distinction--overt discrimination, that is--as un-American, we seem to tolerate it in air travel.

Unless, perhaps, we personally are rejected.

Such appeared to be the case with a Santa Barbara couple. Later this month, they face trial on federal charges stemming from a July 14 Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Los Angeles.

Upon being refused upgrades to first class mid-flight, an FBI affidavit states, Thomas C. Kasper, 36, poured two pots of coffee on two flight attendants, one of whom suffered second-degree burns. Kasper and companion Susan K. Callihan, 28, threatened to open emergency doors during the flight. Callihan kicked and pulled at the cockpit door trying to break in, but an off-duty pilot managed to hold it shut. The struggles persisted even after the plane landed, at which time authorities searched the pair and found methamphetamines on Callihan, the affidavit said.

She could be sentenced to 20 years and Kasper to life in prison if convicted of the charges: interference with the performance of duties of a flight crew member by assault or intimidation and, in Kasper’s case, assault with a dangerous weapon (the coffee pot).

Before Schuller’s confrontation, the best-known case of midflight disagreement occurred in October 1995, also aboard a United flight.

Connecticut investment brokerage president Gerard Finneran, then 58, was charged with threatening United Airlines flight attendants, dousing himself with alcohol, dropping his trousers and defecating on a snack cart in first class after the crew refused to serve him any more wine.

He cleaned up after himself with linen napkins and wiped his hands on “various service counters and service implements used by the crew,” according to the criminal complaint filed against him in federal court. The pilot was forced to halt food and beverage service to all passengers aboard as a safety precaution.

Finneran pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault charges in an episode that cost him $48,000--mostly compensation to fellow passengers for their tickets, but $1,000 of it was for cleanup.

His attorney said his client, who was flying from Buenos Aires to New York, was suffering digestive ailments and could not reach the first-class lavatory since the door was blocked by the bodyguards of another passenger. Finneran, a prominent Wall Street financier considered an expert on Third World debt, had some impressive fellow passengers that day: the presidents of Argentina and Portugal, who were en route to the United Nations’ 50th anniversary celebration.

Finneran was sentenced May 14, 1996, to two years’ probation and an additional $5,000 fine. He agreed to perform 300 hours of community service, which he chose to do at an employment agency for recovering addicts; he was ordered to “refrain from excessive alcohol,” undergo counseling and banned from drinking while flying. He remains a frequent flier with United.

Booze seems to be a factor in numerous airborne mishaps and outbursts.

A family of 18 passengers had to be physically restrained during a Northwest Airlines flight from Gatwick, England, to L.A. after one of the men began chasing his wife around the cabin and shouting insults. Three members of the group were eventually handcuffed to their seats. They later blamed the crew for serving them too many drinks.

Passengers don’t always realize that the cocktails they drink while flying have roughly double the impact they have on the ground, due to the altitude.

Even in first class, flight attendants must police passengers getting too tipsy. It is against federal law for a pilot to take off with a drunk passenger.

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The free drinks and other first-class amenities are appealing, said a number of passengers interviewed at John Wayne Airport, but almost none of them said they thought such freebies were worth paying full-fare first-class prices.

Stephen Venianakis, 40, of Mission Viejo, a production manager for a photo finishing lab, usually flies coach. But he and his family were bumped to first class last year returning from Greece. Their TWA flight had been delayed seven hours because it was scheduled right after the one that crashed off Long Island. A bevy of items was offered: slippers, eye masks for napping. And the seats were definitely more spacious and comfy, he said.

“And a tray of hors d’oeuvres sitting next to you with wonderful things.”

An individual tray?

“Of course,” he said with a grin: “We do not share in first class.”

Carol Rosenstiel, an Anaheim real-estate broker at the airport to see off her grandson, said she flies first class about once a year. She’s done so a dozen times--always on upgrades earned from mileage already flown.

Rosenstiel, 58, said she’s seen some grumpy flight attendants and some especially tolerant ones. She recalled a midnight first-class flight from Florida to John Wayne Airport when a couple of twentysomething athletes pulled a prank on a flight attendant.

One of the young men crawled into the overhead luggage compartment. Then his friend asked a flight attendant for a pillow. When the attendant opened the compartment, the young man yelled, “Boo!”

The flight attendant was startled but unflappable, merely laughing and telling the clown to return to his seat.

Speaking of John Wayne, here is a story of a first-class gesture in first class.

During a 1964 flight, Faubert was training a new stewardess, as they were then called. The trainee was carrying a tray loaded with food to one of her first-class passengers, who turned out to be the Duke.

“She was so stunned,” Faubert said, “that she dropped the whole tray in his lap. He didn’t sue. He didn’t get mad. He was very nice about it, laughed it off.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

First-Class Treatment

(Food/Drink)

* Table linens, ceramic dishes and real silverware.

* Drinks--including free alcohol--served in glassware.

* All you could possibly want to eat, from freshly prepared hors d’oeuvres to lemon tarts with raspberry sauce.

(Service)

* Ratio of flight attendants high enough they call you by name.

* Food carts don’t block wide aisles.

* Scented hot towels to freshen one’s hands.

(Entertainment)

* Individual television monitors with choice of movies, television programs and news.

* All the magazines, newspapers you want to read.

(Restrooms)

* One per 11 passengers, versus one per 46 in coach cabin*

* The ratio of passengers to lavatories varies by type of plane and among airlines. Thisfigure is based on a study of 300 planes and 45 airlines worldwide.

The Comfort Zone

Airlines, not plane manufacturers, determine the number of seats and their arrangement. Comfort is given more priority on long-haul flights, and rows are usually spaced farther apart than on short hops. Seat width and space between rows vary widely among airlines. Typical seat width and space between rows, by class:

Seat Width

(Inches)

First class: 22-35

Business: 20-23

Coach: 18-20

Space Between Rows

(Inches)

First class: 56-72

Business: 35-40

Coach: 30-32

The Elite Minority

Figures based on U.S. domestic ticket sales during July 1997. Analysts say international percentages are similar:

* Passengers flying first class: 8.8%

* Ticket sale revenue from first class tickets: 21%

Ticket Price Comparison

Fares are round trip with 21-day advance booking, airport taxes included:

* LAX to JFK International, New York

United Airlines

First class: $3,515

Business: $2,463

Coach: $ 255

* John Wayne Airport to JFK

American Airlines

First class: $2,664

Coach: $493

* LAX to London Heathrow

United Airlines

First class: $10,678

Business: $ 7,224

Coach: $ 594

British Airways

First class: $9,998 Dinner

Business: $6,838

Coach: $1,097

So Many Miles, So Many Choices

Frequent-flier mileage programs permit members to exchange their mileage points for free tickets or accommodation upgrades. A 1996 survey of Consumer Reports Travel Letter readers shows that most spend their points on economy-class domestic tickets:

* 55% Domestic/coach ticket

* 12% Europe/coach ticket

* 11% Domestic/first class upgrade

* 10% Other/coach ticket

* 6% Hawaii/coach ticket

* 6% Europe/first class upgrade

Sources: Consumer Reports Travel Letter, Airline Transport Assn., American Express, Times reports and airlines. Researched by JANICE L. JONES and LOIS HOOKER / Los Angeles Times

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* Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Dennis McLellan and Ann Conway and researcher Janice Jones.