For only the second time ever, we have flown somewhere 1st Class. The first was 40 years ago and the only reason we had the privilege then was because we were flying from Guam to Connecticut because my Mom was very sick and that was the first flight out. This time it was intentional.
And for the first time in a long time we opted to fly out of Augusta instead of Atlanta or Charlotte. This was intentional too, as the additional cost of the extra hop was a lot cheaper than the cost of gas for the drive, the 2 weeks of parking and the hotel stay near the airport at the bigger city.
The experience didn’t start out too first class though. When we scanned Donna’s boarding pass for seat 2D, the gate agent said hold on, we have to move you, that seat is broken. So we stood around for about 15 minutes while most of the rest of the passengers loaded. Finally, her seat was changed to 3C which was right behind my 2C. When we boarded, she said, “You take 3 and I’ll sit in 2.” I guess she figured, that way she wouldn’t have to sit next to some stranger. Turns out, she needn’t have worried, seat 3D was broken too. While not ideal, we both did get a little extra room to stretch out on the 1-1/2 hour flight. The 1st class pluses were both the seats and snacks were a lot nicer than coach, also your drink came in an actual glass instead of plastic. No real minuses except for the broken seat snafu.
On the Dallas to Portland leg there were no seat issues, so we did get to sit next to each other this time. Because of the longer trip and larger cities served the plane was substantially larger, so the seats were larger and nicer. Our included meal service was served in real dishes with real metal utensils. While the food wasn’t restaurant quality it was pretty good. The pre-meal snack was a serving of mixed-nuts, but not just a little foil packet of them, it was a small ceramic dish of heated ones.
The nicest thing about 1st Class experience is the boarding. It is great that you get on first, but the only having to wait for like maybe 6 other people to move before you are on the jet way heading into the terminal is the bomb.
So, all in all, was spending 1.7 times the cost of a coach ticket to get nicer boarding, snacks and seats worth it …. maybe.