Airlines Wooing Executives With Business-Class Perks : Travel: The increasingly popular fare is cheaper than first class but provides more service than economy.

NEW YORK —  Business is booming in business class.

In the competitive airline industry, many big carriers are racing to cash in on the growing popularity of business class, which is more expensive than economy but cheaper than first class.

Business class is found mainly on international flights and has grown as business has become more globalized, boosting air travel abroad by company executives.

“It reflects the amount of international business that’s happening,” said Randy Petersen, editor and publisher of Frequent, a monthly newsletter published in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Jet-powered executives look for service, comfort and more space in which to work as they shuttle between the United States, Western Europe and East Asia. And their companies are willing to pay extra for them to arrive in better shape.

A lot extra. A business-class ticket from New York to London, for example, costs about $1,400 to $1,500 one way, compared to an economy fare of $450 to $865. First class, which provides even more pampering than the business cabins, is the most expensive: $2,400 to $2,800 for the same flight.

Business-class passengers get separate check-in counters and special lounges at airports. In the air, they get separate cabins with wider seats than are found in economy class, fancier food, free liquor and other amenities. They also get a lot more attention than passengers in the cramped coach section: The ratio of flight attendants to fliers increases from economy to business to first.

Who flies in business class? United Airlines representatives say about 80% of its business fliers are men, mainly business executives, with an average income of more than $80,000 a year. They average 11 airline trips per year, two of which are international.

Some big U.S. airlines, aiming to capitalize on the business-class boom, are emulating foreign carriers with strong reputations for international service.

United, for example, recently announced that it is spending more than $45 million to upgrade its business-class service in what it calls the largest renovation program in U.S. airline history. British Airways, whose revenue from business class has jumped 106% in the past year, spent $40 million on an upgrade program in early 1988.

“Business-class customers are very important to our international air travel business,” United Chairman Stephen M. Wolf said in launching the improvement program. “These new enhancements will give our international service a strong competitive edge.”

Chicago-based United offers business class on its flights to and from East Asia and the Pacific--the world’s longest hauls, where comfort becomes even more important. Its flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, for example, takes 14 hours and 40 minutes.

Business class accounted for around $390 million of United’s $8.9 billion in revenue in 1988. The airline plans to include the service on its new flights to Europe next spring.

Some U.S. airlines are catching up with big foreign carriers in the international service game, said Dan Smith, director of industry relations for the International Airline Passengers Assn. in Dallas.

In the United States, where the airlines have been deregulated since 1978, low fares and reduced labor costs have been emphasized more than service. Carriers in Western Europe and East Asia, on the other hand, still operate mainly under government control of fares and routes.

Closer to home, only Trans World Airlines and Pan Am World Airways offer business class to any significant extent on domestic U.S. flights--notably on coast-to-coast flights, which use bigger jets.

The smaller, narrow-body jets used for most domestic flights are difficult to divide into three sections, and the majority of U.S. flights offer only economy and first class.

In addition, many companies will pay for employees to fly business class on long overseas trips but will limit them to economy on domestic flights, reducing the incentive for airlines to offer business class within the United States.