Pics or it didn't happen
I refuse to fly Spirit. Very occasional on Frontier but circumstances have to be just right.
Ditto for me. I'm interested for to-Europe, but not back for example (and only at the right 'price'). Though I sleep a fair bit both ways over the Pacific pond...
It's a small sample size but I've always had good experiences with Jetblue and they have a nice setup at their JFK hub.
Yea, I would normally never pay the extra cost to upgrade to business class when flying (although I'm tall - 6'3" - so sitting in an economy seat for any length of time is almost (pure) torture for me); I too would rather spend that extra money on better hotels; nicer meals, etc. But my wife and I flew from Boston to Paris last Fall to go to a wedding in the south of France and my wife said I'm past the age (we're in our late 60's) of flying in coach overseas, so she bought two business class tickets on Jet Blue (their "Mint" service) for the round trip flights. I think the cost was in the range of $2,500 to $3,000 per roundtrip ticket, which is considerably more than coach fare for that flight but was cheaper than business-class fare on the other available airlines. I have to say, if you ignore the much higher cost, it was a nice way to fly. On JetBlue Mint, each passenger gets their own enclosed "pod" - one on each side of the center aisle (these are narrow body planes) that angle towards the center aisle and has a lie-flat seat (and I could fully stretch out horizontally, even at 6'3", to try to sleep), plus there was definitely upgraded food options (although nothing super gourmet), free drinks, a large-screen video with many different viewing options and better service. Plus, you get to board first and get off first; you also get a "goody" bag of various trinkets and a pillow and blanket and slippers for sleeping. Frankly, I didn't think it was worth the extra money and that flight from Boston to Paris is not that long - 6.5 to 7 hours, depending on the winds. It's not even enough time to utilize the lie-flat seats to try to sleep for any length of time (and I don't sleep well on planes anyways). But if someone else is paying for it (like your employer) or money is of no concern to you or you can use airline points to upgrade, I would do it again. It is definitely a more civilized way to fly.
I was in Tokyo about 12 hours before the ensuing flights into Indonesia.
on my 16 hr flights to HK and Capetown, i think i slept a total of 2 hrs combined... just can't sleep on a plane...I've had the lie flat business class once, as a Delta free upgrade LAX - Tokyo in 2016. I slept as soundly as in a bed for 5 hours, deliberately not trying to adjust into the new time zone because I planned to visit the 5AM Tokyo fish market Liz had visited 4 days earlier. But my day was a Wednesday, the day of the week it was closed.
A year ago we paid Lufthansa $200 each for lie flat from Frankfurt to Johannesburg. But that was not business class; we each got an empty row of 4 seats in the back of coach. Liz said it helped her a lot; I didn't think it was that comfortable, only slept 3 hours. It was easier for me to sleep in the Emirates A380 coach seats this March, and Liz slept well on that one too. In standard coach seats Liz rarely sleeps much at all; I sleep erratically, some flights much better than others.
I've been on some of those airlines in the bottom half of that list in recent years and I can't say they are materially different than the US's big three airlines... I also see a huge miss in not having Thai airways on the upper half of that list, etc...