Premium economy seems set to grow in importance to airlines as the world starts to recover from the COVID-19 crisis, with what was already the most profitable real estate by area looking to benefit from downgrading business travellers, pent-up premium leisure demand, and passengers who — after years of staying two metres away from people — don’t want to sit at hugging distance of a stranger. With the industry in dire straits, installing a fully new hard product is expensive, complex, and time-consuming, and even adding modifications is complex, as the COVID-19 screens mooted last year have shown us. But what about taking a leaf from the book of responses to the pandemic, and thinking about selling an empty middle seat, as many airlines did during the early pandemic? Could airlines add a middle-seat-economy class, whether or not that’s branded as premium economy?