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For me personally the issue is not with a flight the time but with comfort. The other day I flu JetBlue mint from LA to New York and I never felt better after the flight. The problem with my flights to Europe are incredibly narrow and uncomfortable seats and limited leg space. I just can't physically sit in those economy seats even for 2 hours...I'm 6'3" btw

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And since the airlines want you to upgrade to first or business class, they have little incentive to make economy class bearable.

It's also driven by the fact that a lot of people (and many corporate travel departments) pick flights strictly based on price so anything you can do to appear at the top of the travel agent listing sorted by price gets you business.

Fortunately I have the status to always fly my default airline with extra legroom seats.

But to your broader point. Modern lie-flat business class is far more comfortable with personalized entertainment options (and plugged in via WiFi if you want) than first class on PanAm ever was. Long flights are still kinda boring but I'm not sure they're painful enough that any but a vanishingly small sliver of people who aren't already flying in private jets would pay a huge premium for them.

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