Continental Airline Tickets

Which of these airlines offer the best business class experience?

I'm flying from Tampa, Florida to Salt lake city, Utah, which isn't a terribly long flight.. but between Continental, US Airways, Frontier Airlines, United, Delta and American Airlines, which would be the best? If you can make them into a list from best to worst, or worst to best and explain why, that'd be best.. I'm pretty stuck. :x

Public Comments

1. In my personal opinion, I like the United Airline best because of my membership status with them and they do indeed have one of the better business class seats than Continental, US Airways, FA, and AA. Delta is very good as well... I guess it really depends on the price...
2. Delta is better then all of them good service,Really nice People on the Plane. etc i always take that to Pairs.
3. Since this is a domestic flight, the experience among all these airlines would be about the same. I would probably put Continental as the best of the group because they have won Skytrax (http://www.airlinequality.com) best North American legacy airline in the past. Frontier would be second because the discount airlines usually scored better among travelers versus the legacy airlines. Delta isn't too bad depending the flight crew you get. I usually fly Delta as they have the most flights from where I live. American, United and US Airways are a tie. United and US Airways used to have the highest mishandled baggage rate and US Airways for awhile got rid of free in-flight snack service and wanted to charge passengers $2 for a cup of water. Since other airlines did not follow suit, the airline ended up bringing back free snacks and stopped the $2 cup of water charge. I flew American once and thought the service was all right but I have heard of people saying bad things about that airline but that goes for all the legacy airlines. Sometimes you get a flight crew that is very helpful and friendly and then on another flight, you will get flight attendants who really don't want to be there. You can always go to http://www.seatguru.com to find out the seat width and pitch for each airline. The way I would choose would be what airline's frequent flier program you are a member of (Continental, United and US Airways are in the same alliance so if you have a frequent flier account with any one of these airlines and fly the other 2, you can earn miles still); how much the ticket price is on these airlines and which airline offers you the most convenient flight time.
4. For the record, none of those airlines will have a "business class" product for this particular routing. Also, you will have at least 1 stop on any airline. Your options for your flights will basically be domestic economy (E) or first class (F). The first class products are, in my opinion, all about the same. I've flown domestic F on UA, DL, US, and CO and found them to be very similar. If food service is important to you, all of them will likely have something to offer in F. If in-flight internet is important to you, AA, DL, F9 (Frontier) and US all have GoGo internet on select aircraft (UA has GoGo also, but only on their Premium Service flights between SFO/LAX and JFK). Some airlines also have in-seat power in F (CO comes to mind, UA do not, not sure about others). If you're booked in F, note that you should get free checked baggage allowance. For Economy, there are some differences. Note that US does not have any in-flight entertainment domestically - no audio, no video. F9 has excellent in-flight entertainment (IFE), with personal touch-screens for every seat. CO has also installed this in many of their aircraft, although many still have overhead monitors. In all likelihood, UA will be stuck with overhead monitors for video, but they do have good audio (recently switched from XM to Zune, which I like). Ditto AA and DL. Note that Frontier does NOT have F class. For legroom in E, UA and F9 are your best options. They both have E sections with extra legroom which are free to elite/frequent travelers, but available to others for a fee (usually in the $20-25 range per segment). UA calls theirs Economy Plus, F9 calls it Stretch. As for food, CO is still your best bet, as they still have meal service in economy. The other airlines will just give you beverages and/or snacks or, depending on the length of the flight, the opportunity to buy more substantial snack/meal boxes on board. Note that many airlines (eg, UA) have switched to "cashless" cabins requiring you to use credit cards to purchase on board. The kicker here is that regional partners (eg, SkyWest, Comair, Colgan Air who fly under the Delta Connection, United Express, Continental Connection, etc) still require CASH on board for alcoholic beverages, so be prepared in either case. Speaking of regional partners, if you do end up on one of these, note that you will not have any IFE since they operate smaller aircraft like Embraers, Canadairs, etc. Another consideration I would make is total travel time. Many of the DL flights will likely connect in ATL or MSP (which is a bit out of the way). UA probably ORD (a bit out of the way) or DEN (good connection). CO will definitely be IAH, which is on the way. F9 will be in DEN, which is also good., as is AA through DFW. Also note that you can end up with many codeshares - CO/UA/US are all in one alliance, you may be flying a UA ticket on a CO aircraft connecting through IAH, for instance. If flying in F, I'd probably go with one of CO, UA, US just because they are part of the biggest airline alliance in the world. If that doesn't matter to you, F is all about the same, imo, so I'd go with the one that has the most convenient time and best price/value. For E, I'd look at price, time and routing first. If alliance doesn't matter to you, I'd be biased toward 1) CO for the free food on board; 2) then F9 for the IFE and Stretch; 3) then UA for Economy Plus; 4) then DL for the good snacks (sun chips and biscoff cookies - yum!); 5) then AA; 6) then US (no IFE).