Hurry and grab a seat in your favorite airline’s first- or business-class cabin. Following a tumultuous 2009, research is beginning to indicate travelers are wasting no time returning to the front of the plane. Airlines are finally beginning to see travelers filling their premium cabins, expecting the high-caliber products and services to which they were previously accustomed.

At Global Traveler, we are dedicated to making your first- and business-class decisions as easy as possible. While many of you continued to fly in the front of the plane during the economic downturn and some of you may just be returning, all of you, along with everyone at GT, are eagerly anticipating what’s new in the world of premium travel. Flip through the following pages to find out.

For the seventh consecutive year, Global Traveler is proud to bring you our annual first- and business-class survey. After months of compilation, we have painstakingly produced the charts you will find on the next 15 pages. Our charts include all the airlines offering flights between a U.S. destination and another city, international or domestic. Information covers configuration; entertainment options; amenities; and seat width, pitch and recline.

New and Improved

A handful of airlines stood up and took notice of the returning business travelers, revamping and upgrading their product in 2010.

In the Asian market, two airlines recently introduced truly stand-out premium products. Touted as a “luxury business class,” Asiana’s new OZ Quadra Smartium product derives its name from the airline’s flight code (OZ) and the word “quadrant,” meaning four, symbolic of the seat’s four distinct features. Smartium is the hybrid of “smart,” representative of the seat’s smart design, and the suffix “-ium,” meaning place. With so much thought put into the product name, passengers can rest assured the actual product will not disappoint.

Characterized by four distinct features, the OZ Quadra Smartium offers a fully flat bed, 74.5 inches long; ample privacy and a dedicated storage area; direct aisle access at every seat; and a staggered layout, achieved by removing eight of the 32 seats in the previous business-class cabin configuration.

Earlier this year, All Nippon Airways launched the Inspiration of Japan on the New York (JFK)–Tokyo (NRT) route. The product is a complete overhaul of the airline’s first- and business-class cabins based on the elements of innovation, originality and modern Japan. The philosophy behind the new brand is to offer fresh experiences on each flight, exceed expectations and blend modern Japanese technology with the long-held Japanese belief of omotenashi — anticipating customers’ needs and wants before they ask.

Combining those virtues with cutting-edge design, ANA introduced ANA Business Staggered and ANA First Square. The new business-class design offers aisle access from every seat, a staggered layout boasting 50 percent more room, a wide-sliding table, storage and the largest-in-class 17-inch LCD wide screen. If passengers are looking for space, ANA First Square has plenty, and then some. High-panel walls surround the suite-like seats, optimizing privacy. Compartments abound, offering abundant stowage for clothing, baggage and personal items.

Two European carriers have introduced top-notch services in 2010. Magnifica is a fitting name for Alitalia’s magnificently redesigned business-class cabin. The cabin’s 1-2-1 layout is designed to please solo travelers or those traveling in pairs. A 15.4-inch private video screen features a unique privacy device, which allows only the person in the designated seat to view the screen. More than 40 films and 12 audio channels are available.

The new lie-flat Alitalia seat coupled with a scheme for changing cabin lighting ensures a solid night of rest on board. The intensity and color of the lights change based on the time of the journey. Other noteworthy amenities are the landscape camera offering a live picture from outside the aircraft, noise reduction headphones and a menu featuring regional traditional Italian cuisine.

Iberia Airlines overhauled its business class, Business Plus, this year, hoping to attract more passengers. The Spanish carrier removed a row of seats, expanding the room between rows by nearly 12 inches. The added space allowed for the introduction of fully flat seats. Enhancements have been made to the airline’s Airbus A340 fleet, available on routes between Spain and the United States, Latin America and South Africa. Future plans are focused on implementing a new business-class design and new fittings on its long-haul aircraft in 2012.

United Airlines introduced updates to its Boeing 777s. The phased rollout is available on flights to Europe and within North America. The business-class seats recline to a full 180 degrees, and the 15.4-inch personal monitor provides more than 150 hours of programming. The cabin configuration has forward- and rear-facing seats to enhance aisle access, comfort and privacy. Arm rests and seat widths are adjustable.

The United First Suite is also a fully flat bed, extending to 6 feet, 6 inches and 23.5 inches wide. The suites offer ample storage space and an in-suite coat hook. The in-flight menus were created by 10-time James Beard Award winner Chef Charlie Trotter, and the wines were selected by Doug Frost, one of only three people in the world to hold both the title of “Master Sommelier” and “Master of Wine.”

The Great Recline Debate

Inevitably, our requests for survey information come back with answers that cause us to scratch our heads. Of particular confusion year over year is the relationship between seat pitch and recline. Over the past seven years, we have taken a clear stance on defining the two, and we adjust recline to fit our definitions.

Pitch is defined as the distance between the back of your headrest and the headrest in front of you when the seats are fully upright. Pitch, however, is the determining factor in how much room passengers have, not only when sitting upright but also when in the recline position. Based on the average height of an adult male — 5 feet, 9 inches — a seat must have a pitch of 70 inches or greater in order to be a true lie-flat bed of 180 degrees. Business-class passengers looking for a true lie-flat flight experience may want to opt for OpenSkies (BIZ BED cabin), Virgin Atlantic, Air New Zealand, Korean Air or Qantas.

An interesting answer popped up this year, with several airlines offering the reply “angled lie-flat” in the recline column. As we insist upon a number in degrees for that section, we had to change several answers to estimated degrees, but it brought to the surface a very interesting point. By coining the term “angled lie-flat,” airlines can tout their services as lie-flat but, in actuality, the seats recline at an angle (picture an old-fashioned see-saw), so when passengers are trying to sleep, they may find themselves sliding down to the foot of the seat.

While researching “angled lie-flat,” it was difficult to find a clear definition for that type of seat. According to SeatGuru.com, a website dedicated to providing complete information on airline cabins, lie-flat seats can be defined in this way: “While airlines often market these seats as having 180 degrees of recline, in their fully reclined position they are slightly angled and do not lay completely horizontal. Passengers often find these seats to be extremely comfortable for relaxing and working, but not conducive to sleep when in the fully reclined position because of the awkward angle.”

Consumers looking for a true lie-flat seat should be aware of the angled lie-flat marketing. Rest assured, based on the above-described explanation of Global Traveler’s stance on pitch and recline, all the airlines listed as having seats with 180 degrees of recline in our charts are offering a true lie-flat bed.

Of course, as you thumb through the charts, you may notice a few exceptions. As the aviation industry looks toward the future, more and more airlines are introducing unique cabin configurations that allow them to offer true lie-flats with less than a 70-inch pitch. They can put the seats closer together, fitting more seats into a cabin, without sacrificing passenger comfort.

Air Canada, Delta Air Lines and Cathay Pacific are all listed in the charts as having a herringbone configuration. This unique layout creates a suite-like atmosphere, with each seat angled out and narrower at the bottom. Think of flippers in a pinball machine or the pattern skis make in fresh snow. Headrest to headrest, the distance may be less than 70 inches, but without a seat bottom directly in front of the other seat bottom, the seats can recline to a full 180 degrees.

We mentioned ANA’s new business-class cabin earlier; however, its configuration is another exception to this rule. A large side table is attached to each seat. Each seat is laid out in an alternate sequence — a seat with the table to the left and behind it a seat with the table to the right — hence the name ANA Business Staggered. The passenger’s feet go under the space in front of the seat, which is under the side table of the person in front of him. Thus, ANA offers a fully flat seat with a pitch of 44 inches. Swiss International Air Lines has a similar staggered layout.

And the final exception to the pitch rule that you may notice in our survey is Singapore Airlines. With a pitch of 51 to 58 inches, the airline’s wide seat concept works with the body’s pear shape, compartmentalizing the head and feet areas. When the seat turns into a bed, the body juts, the head and feet shift into smaller areas and passengers have a fully flat 76-inch-long bed.

And All the Rest That’s Fit to Print

As with all things in life, not all the answers fit so neatly into our categories. In an effort to offer concise, accurate, easy-to-read information, we often have to standardize what is provided. Sometimes this involves deducing, estimating, even adding, in order to ensure our charts are not leading readers astray.

One area where it is nearly impossible to translate the information into one neat and orderly number is the entertainment section. In some instances, airlines have the information in hours of programming, not number of channels. In other instances, music is offered in CDs or MP3s, not in audio channels. Most of those peculiarities are expressed in the charts.

For further clarification, the “Number of Other Video Programs” category includes games, TV shows, children’s programs and audio books, just to name a few of the explanations we received.

We noticed an interesting trend in the “Number of News Channels” column this year. A shift seems to be occurring away from a standard number of dedicated news channels to an influx of live satellite updates or scrolling headlines. Airlines with unique news offerings include British Airways (daily BBC News Updates), Emirates (news headlines updated regularly via satellite), EVA Air (24-hour Internet news), Jet Airways (live text news, in which three news items are updated per hour) and Qantas (one special international news bulletin by Channel Nine News).

Another category with a little gray area is the “WiFi on Board” column, which is mainly applicable to domestic carriers. However, as technology continues to advance, international carriers are able to offer other SMS, text messaging and Internet capabilities. An “N” in that column does not mean no special services exist, it just means it is not WiFi on board; we couldn’t squeeze a list of the other available services into the chart. Take Finnair, for instance. While you can’t connect to your favorite website from 35,000 feet, you can send and receive SMS messages and emails through the satellite phone at every seat.

With so many factors to consider when choosing an airline, from a reputation for service to the most favorable fares and most direct routings, it’s never an easy choice. We hope the information provided here can help make that decision just a little bit easier. Whichever airline you choose, enjoy your next first- or business-class journey.

The Method

In our quest to bring you the most up-to-date and comprehensive information on first- and business-class cabins, Global Traveler spent months contacting airlines and gathering information.

If we were unable to obtain a response from an airline, we conducted independent research to complete the charts. Independent research included gathering information from airline websites and reputable sites such as http://SeatGuru.com and http://SeatExpert.com. All entries completed using GT research are clearly marked. Information followed by “EST” in the charts means “estimate.” In some instances, airlines did not provide data in the form we requested, so we deciphered their responses to fit our format.