business class

With its lack of premium amenities and upgrade options, Southwest has been an airline that many business travelers try to avoid. But after it absorbs AirTran next year, those frequent fliers will have almost no choice on some routes.

Airlines are hiring celebrity chefs, putting designer skin-care items in bathroom kits and racing to redo seats in business and first class cabins to lie flat in an all-out push to attract premium passengers. Carriers breathed a collective sigh of relief earlier this year when an international...

It won't be cheap, but more elbow room will soon be available for some passengers of WestJet Airlines. The carrier, which does not offer business class, is debuting a trial program to cut out seating passengers in the dreaded middle seat in the first eight to 10 rows of its single aisle planes....