Why Bigger Planes Mean Cramped Quarters (popsci.com) 234
An anonymous reader shares a report: The ironic thing about the compressed state of air travel today is that planes are getting larger. The jet I was on, an Airbus A321, stretches nearly 23 feet longer than its predecessor, the A320. More space, more passengers, more profit. These bigger planes are increasingly the most common Âvariants -- both on American Airlines and across all carriers. The current Boeing 737s, the world's most flown craft, are all longer than the original by up to 45 feet. And yet, on the inside, we're getting squeezed.
That's because more space doesn't equal more space in Airline World. It equals more seats -- and typically less room per person. In 2017, for example, word leaked that American was planning to add six economy spots to its A320s, nine to its A321s, and 12 (that's two rows) to its Boeing 737-800s. JetBlue is reportedly ramming 12 extras into its A320s, and Delta's will gain 10. And, come 2020, you'll likely find more seats on every United plane. In Airline World, they call this densification, which is a silly word. Passengers call it arrrgh!
Consumer Reports recently polled 55,000 of its members about air travel. There were complaints about all aspects, from ticketing to agents checking carry-ons at the gate. But 30 percent of coach-class fliers rated their seats as outright uncomfortable, and every airline received extremely low scores on legroom and cushiness in economy. Clearly, things are dismal and seem to be getting even worse. They're so bad, in fact, that last year, nonprofit consumer-advocacy group FlyersRights.org filed a suit against the Federal Aviation Administration, after lobbying the agency to stop the squeeze and standardize seat sizes.
That's because more space doesn't equal more space in Airline World. It equals more seats -- and typically less room per person. In 2017, for example, word leaked that American was planning to add six economy spots to its A320s, nine to its A321s, and 12 (that's two rows) to its Boeing 737-800s. JetBlue is reportedly ramming 12 extras into its A320s, and Delta's will gain 10. And, come 2020, you'll likely find more seats on every United plane. In Airline World, they call this densification, which is a silly word. Passengers call it arrrgh!
Consumer Reports recently polled 55,000 of its members about air travel. There were complaints about all aspects, from ticketing to agents checking carry-ons at the gate. But 30 percent of coach-class fliers rated their seats as outright uncomfortable, and every airline received extremely low scores on legroom and cushiness in economy. Clearly, things are dismal and seem to be getting even worse. They're so bad, in fact, that last year, nonprofit consumer-advocacy group FlyersRights.org filed a suit against the Federal Aviation Administration, after lobbying the agency to stop the squeeze and standardize seat sizes.
Thing is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly.
Everyone's always willing to complain, but yet they continually want cheaper and cheaper flights, while the actual costs of operating an airline just keep rising. Customers want more destinations and more airport services. Somebody's going to be paying for that, so it comes at the cost of legroom.
Re:Thing is... (Score:4, Interesting)
So use more efficient aircraft for medium and shorter haul flights. Dash-8 Q400 can have decent seat pitch and still use less fuel/resources than jet aircraft. Perfect for routes like New York-Toronto-Montreal where Porter Airlines uses it, without compromising service.
Yeah, yeah, ignorant people are scared of a "prop plane..."
Re:Thing is... (Score:5, Informative)
It's not that simple. Even WestJet says that they are only more efficient on short-hauls, less than 300 miles. They are louder, they generally don't fit in normal gates and require buses / walking to the plane, they have very little overhead room... They introduce a new type of plane to be handled by ground crews in many small airports with small crews.
There are real disadvantages, along with advantages. If they made sense for an airline, the "sacred of prop plane" wouldn't be an issue, just like it's not an issue for Porter.
Re:Thing is... (Score:5, Informative)
Dash-8s work fine with jetways -- they need an adapter gangway that mates to the lower door height. But the same applies to small jet aircraft like the ERJ, CRJ, and BAE146. The reason jetways aren't used for many short-haul flights isn't due to aircraft type, but because smaller airports and regional terminals weren't set up for them.
https://www.eiaviation.com/wp-... [eiaviation.com]
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Alaska Airlines (Horizon) already does this. They have an entirely fleet of Q400s for shorter runs. From Seattle, they fly to Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
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Re:Thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Many top tier airports are slot restricted - they are at capacity and can't increase the number of aircraft landing or taking off, which means that the only alternative is larger aircraft.
Re:Thing is... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Actual costs of operating an airline crashed in the last decade. Reminder: Analysts where talking about "when is oil barrel going to hit 200USD". One of the biggest costs of operating an airline is fuel.
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My thoughts exactly.
Everyone's always willing to complain, but yet they continually want cheaper and cheaper flights, while the actual costs of operating an airline just keep rising. Customers want more destinations and more airport services. Somebody's going to be paying for that, so it comes at the cost of legroom.
They can't cut legroom much more, I'm not that tall (5'10"), but sometimes find my knees touching the seatpocket in front of me.
If the airlines were required to advertise this information (seat width and pitch) along with ticket prices, then maybe consumers *could* take seat space into account, but it's very tedious and time consuming to do so now -- on any flight > 3 hours, I always try to Seat Guru and find out exactly what seat I'm buying. I started doing this after one cramped flight to Hawaii in a 7
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I can't make myself shorter, but you can shave a few inches off that fat ass of yours.
I don't know if you've ever seen a human body, but except in extreme obesity, a fat ass adds height while seated more than back-to-knee distance. In any case, at 160 lbs, I'm well within a healthy BMI for my height, so unless I'm willing to shave bone off my spine, weight less won't make a seat any more comfortable.
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And yet it's rare to be on a full flight. How much extra are they really making?
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And yet it's rare to be on a full flight. How much extra are they really making?
It seems that I'm on full flights a lot more than I used to be. I would say about 80% of my flights are full with many having waiting lists and/or paying people to voluntarily deboard. Airlines overbook and run at about 85% capacity. They can't increase that much more than the 85% because additional overbooking runs the risk of having too many flights where too many people can't get on the plane they paid for. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/1... [cnbc.com]
Sneaky inflation (Score:4, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly.
Everyone's always willing to complain, but yet they continually want cheaper and cheaper flights
What cheaper flights? In the US, at least, flights are getting more expensive and more cramped and with more extra fees.
What I see happening is sneaky inflation. The base fare stays more or less the same but the ticket is less usable. To get back to where you were you have to pay more. We approaching the point where I may be forced to pay for "premium" economy. This is big problem because those seats are typically 50% more expensive for often less than one inch of extra knee room.
Re: Thing is... (Score:2)
See, this is where I differ I guess. I stopped flying about 8 years ago, give or take. It was just too uncomfortable and too much of a nightmare that it simply wasnâ(TM)t worth it. I said for a long time that the airline industry was in a race to zero. That isnâ(TM)t good for customers. Iâ(TM)m happy paying a reasonable price for a flight. It doesnâ(TM)t need to be $50 for a two hour flight, but it shouldnâ(TM)t be $1000 either. A couple hundred bucks including my carry on and a che
Re: Thing is... (Score:5, Funny)
The purpose of a business is to maximize profits, not to "survive".
This is just tall people expecting short people to subsidize them.
Tall guys get all the chicks [psychologytoday.com], they are paid more [theatlantic.com], and now they are trying to take away the one thing that works in favor of short people: cramped airline seats.
Short people need to stand up for their rights ... and if nobody notices, they need to stand on a stool.
Pay 10% more for 10% more? (Score:3)
Many people, and certainly tall ones, would be happy to pay 10% more for 10% more leg room. That is an extra 3".
But you actually need to pay 100% more to get a slightly bigger seat in Premium Economy.
And that is the point. If Economy was too comfortable, they would not sell many Business class seats.
If I ran an airline, I would remove the padding from Budget Economy seats.
Re: Thing is... (Score:5, Funny)
How is your Napoleon complex faring? Sounds like you skipped your meds today....
You can laugh now, but someday I will dance on your grave: short men live longer [sciencedaily.com]. ... and you will pay more for your extra-long coffin. Enjoy the legroom.
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How is your Napoleon complex faring? Sounds like you skipped your meds today....
You can laugh now, but someday I will dance on your grave: short men live longer [sciencedaily.com]. ... and you will pay more for your extra-long coffin. Enjoy the legroom.
The odd thing about Napoleon is that he wasn't that short. He was actually tall for the day at 5'7 which was actually slightly taller than most people at the time. The idea of Napoleon Bonaparte being diminutive came from British wartime propaganda where he was depicted as being short and monkey-like. Comparatively, Lord Horatio Nelson his British naval adversary was 5'4 but the Duke of Wellington, who commanded the British army during the Napoleonic wars towered over most people at 5'11.
So Napoleon wasn
Re: Thing is... (Score:5, Funny)
Did you try registering it as a emotional support animal? They have to let you take them on board for free, otherwise it's like racist or something.
Re: Thing is... (Score:2)
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Wish I had points to mod you up - you're exactly right. And it's not all US airlines. American Airlines is among the worst at these seat games and other nickel-and-dime bullshit. So guess what? I no longer fly with them, even though they have some routes that are very convenient for me. Southwest and Alaska are both fairly reasonable for seat quality and pricing, and so I use them more.
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...that they didn't complain about ticket prices.
"This airline food tastes terrible!"
"Yeah, and the portions are too small!"
For me, the most annoying thing about flying is . . . some of the other passengers.
Folks fighting with each other while trying to skimp on check-in fees by trying to stuff all their entire worldly belongings into the overhead bins.
Small children who obviously need their own seat, and are too young to travel anyway . . . but the parents MUST take them now, because next year, they will have . . . *gasp* . . . PAY for their ticke
Re:Thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things they don't tell you about capitalism in civics class is that companies do everything they can to avoid competition by making their prices hard to compare with other vendors. They do this by making transactions absurdly complicated (car dealers), by bundling irrelevant stuff into the deal (mobile phone companies, cable companies), unbundling essential stuff (airlines and baggage fees) or by adulterating/diluting their product (airlines and seat sizes).
If you are price comparing two tickets between the same destination, the airlines make it quite difficult to figure out what you're getting for the price, the incidentals you'll have to pay, and even the certainty that you'll actually be able to board the plane. There's intense competition to get the lowest found ticket price in a computerized search, but a price ranking of alternatives is highly unreliable.
On top of this, many airline passengers are in the same position that Microsoft Windows users were for many years: other people make the purchasing decision. I once had an employer book me on an itinerary that took twenty three hours from the time I boarded in Manchester, NH to when wheels touched down in Sacramento, thanks to layovers in Newark and Phoenix. Normally I'd fly out of Boston (where I live) and it would take about eight and half hours, but my boss figured out he could save fifty bucks by making me drive an hour north to a smaller airport.
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So, tell your boss that you expect to be paid an hourly rate (or at least comp time) for anything over eight hours on a "travel day".
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I told my boss that the only reason I was getting on the flight was that the client needed me, and that if he ever put me on a flight like that again I'd resign.
Re:Thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the cell phone, car, cable, and airline industries have nothing on the health industry on obfuscating pricing.
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I do all of the time.
Not about the prices themselves, but about that lottery when buying tickets.
No matter how low the price is in the end, it WILL feel like a ripoff when they sell it for half of that, too.
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Actually they did, or rather do. Those "low prices" are difficult to compare because of the unbundling of services (like "checked baggage") with ever multiplying fees stacked on top. It becomes very difficult to compare equivalent fares. There are tons of complaints about this situation.
And leg room information is not provided with your fare. It you paid a higher ticket price, would you be able to reasonably expect more leg room? Please. If there is a difference it is as likely to be less, plus you just pai
On top of that (Score:2)
So the complainers already have a solution at hand - pay a little more for more space. That they choose the cheaper, cramped seats means they're voting against more space. "Public wants bigger seats" is only true when
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Solution is simple... (Score:5, Insightful)
Go back to live evacuation tests. Require that they use airline CEOs, upper management, and their families as the test subjects... If the plane can't be evac'ed in 90 seconds without injury, increase seat pitch and try again.
If a few airline upper managers get hurt during an evacuation test, maybe they'll realize WHY extremely dense seating is a bad idea.
Re:Solution is simple... (Score:5, Interesting)
Use the CEO, upper management and their families as test subjects, stuff the rest of the plane with homeless people and then tell everyone the first 20 to exit the plane get 50 bucks.
Then start looking for a new CEO and upper management. And pay your cleanup crew handsomely, they earned it.
(that "first 20 to exit get money" test was actually done when airlines found out that the evacuation tests worked like a charm while there were many unnecessary deaths in real emergency situations. People don't act civil when their life's at stake...)
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Or, let's just skip that and start the beatings. It'll be more humane than forcing airline CEOs to use their own airlines.
You can do both. Just saying.
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Go back to live evacuation tests. Require that they use airline CEOs, upper management, and their families as the test subjects... If the plane can't be evac'ed in 90 seconds without injury, increase seat pitch and try again.
If a few airline upper managers get hurt during an evacuation test, maybe they'll realize WHY extremely dense seating is a bad idea.
Meh. As a numerate consumer, I think this is a bad idea. Denser seating lowers ticket prices, and given that the probability that a plane I'm on will need to be evacuated in 90 seconds is extraordinarily low, and given that in one of those rare situations I think minor injuries would be the least of my concerns, I'll take the denser seating and lower price as long as I get enough legroom that I can fit. Especially for short flights.
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Go back to live evacuation tests. Require that they use airline CEOs, upper management, and their families as the test subjects... If the plane can't be evac'ed in 90 seconds without injury, increase seat pitch and try again.
If a few airline upper managers get hurt during an evacuation test, maybe they'll realize WHY extremely dense seating is a bad idea.
Meh. As a numerate consumer, I think this is a bad idea. Denser seating lowers ticket prices, and given that the probability that a plane I'm on will need to be evacuated in 90 seconds is extraordinarily low, and given that in one of those rare situations I think minor injuries would be the least of my concerns, I'll take the denser seating and lower price as long as I get enough legroom that I can fit. Especially for short flights.
Even as a taller individual I am perfectly okay with these denser packed planes. I get upgraded to the extra leg room section automatically on ticket purchase so these lower prices help me, too. But even if I did not get the auto upgrade I would pay for the extra leg room. Anyway, I've been flying on a regular basis for about 15 years now and they have actually increased the number of emergency exits - they had to. They have to have a certain number of exits based on the number of passengers. So I don'
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Why do you assume that they ticket price will go down? This could just as easily be used to pad profit (or at least reduce losses) on a flight. The airline business isn't a free and open competitive marketplace. There are some routes that only have one carrier. In cases like that the airline has no incentive to drop the price while at the same time cramming you into the plane like sardines.
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There's no reason to think that denser packing leads to lower fares. Since airlines are posting record profits, it in fact makes it look like it leads to higher profits.
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That would just make it worse, because they would train those people to evacuate quickly and orderly.
A better solution would be to simply mandate certain seat sizes. Minimum width, minimum legroom.
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Mandate the seat sizes and then people will bitch and moan about the increase in price.
We are talking about the service provision in the most price conscious segment of the market. Those price conscious customers will want the additional room at the same price.
Capitalism (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Capitalism (Score:4, Informative)
This is why capitalism rarely serves the needs of the consumer, because usually all players in the market have a a common goal that is the exact opposite of what the consumer needs.
There are two competing consumer needs here, but you're ignoring the one that is the most important for many consumers: cost. X% fewer seats on a plane, all else equal, means X% higher ticket price. And when consumers are shopping for airline tickets, they're mostly shopping on price.
What consumers need that capitalism doesn't always provide is accurate information. As long as consumers can get accurate information about legroom when choosing their flights, then if they want to choose cheaper flights with less legroom, that's their decision and any regulations that try to force them to have more room just serve to price air travel out of reach for more people.
And frankly, it's not clear to me that most travelers actually care that much, based on the fact that although legroom information is available from the airlines, only one of the major flight search tools provides it. I just checked Kayak, Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline and Google Flights. Google is the only one that provides legroom information, and even there you have to click the "expand" arrow on each fare option to see what the legroom is. Further, while Google allows you to specify a lot of different criteria to narrow your search options, legroom isn't one of them.
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10% higher ticket price for 10% less density is fine by me.
The difference between sufficient leg room and insufficient leg room is not a whole lot.
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And frankly, it's not clear to me that most travelers actually care that much, based on the fact that although legroom information is available from the airlines, only one of the major flight search tools provides it.
Data is not being provided in useful convenient form to consumer, therefore the consumer doesn't care that much? No, it just means that the booking tools chose not to provide it.
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That doesn't mean customers don't care. It means that customers cannot easily get information to make informed decisions. That is, if Kayak offered it, they could use stats to show most people don't care. But it doesn't.
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Air travel is in the situation it's in because it follows the socialist concept that everyone should pay the same price for a seat, regardless of their height or weight.
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You can usually choose an exit row seat with huge legroom for a small extra charge. And many airlines offer a Premium Economy or equivalent Economy++ class, e.g. BA's includes more space and a quieter, smaller cabin in theirs for example: https://www.britishairways.com... [britishairways.com]
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Offering premium economy is the norm [wikipedia.org] rather than the exception. Most airlines offer a bigger seat/more leg room without the extra "package" of business/first class.
First sentence of the linked Wikipedia article "Premium economy is a travel class offered on some airlines."
No, it is not the norm, it is the exception, and without standards and data disclosure requirements, you don't know what the dollars versus legroom trade-off really is.
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No, it is not the norm, it is the exception [...]
Here's a list [seatguru.com] of airlines that offer Premium Economy/Economy Plus.
Perhaps you should consider using those airlines.
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What happened to competition and free market? (Score:4, Interesting)
I certainly support free market as much as reasonably possible. But it doesn't seem to be working here.
Where is the airline offering more legroom and less crammed cabins? Granted within the airlines there are different cabins, but there's no competition between a $350 coach seat and and a $6000 business class seat.
I think its time for some regulation in seat densities.
Re:What happened to competition and free market? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yep, if only for safety. Small-pitch seats are much more difficult to evacuate in an emergency than seats with more legroom.
The last fatal crash of a US airliner was in 2009 [fortune.com]. The need to evacuate an aircraft is a 1 in 100 million event, and the odds get higher every year. They already solved the safety issue by not crashing the planes.
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The last fatal crash of a US airliner was in 2009.
That's largely due to the fact that they managed to successfully evacuate quite a few planes. (That were less densely packed than what's being proposed.)
Re:What happened to competition and free market? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Crashes" generally don't involve evacuation, because every one is instantly dead. Situations like US Air 1549 (the one that landed on the Hudson) or AA 383 (caught fire on take off) are much more common. No one died in those, but would the results be different if they were more packed? Emergency aircraft evacuations happen about once every 11 days in the U.S. [wikipedia.org]
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I didn't know that about the emergency evacuations. The people involved in US airline safety seem to be doing an awesome job.
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My biggest complaint with reduced legroom is the fact that in a crash, your likelihood of surviving is probably considerably less if your kneecaps are already touching the seat in front of you. If ANYTHING causes the seat in front of you to move, it's probably going to kill you as well as the passenger who was occupying that seat. At least when there's a few inches of legroom, the seat could get pushed back by an inch or two without shattering your kneecaps.
Admittedly, this might be an extreme edge case (ai
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Small-pitch seats are much more difficult to evacuate in an emergency than seats with more legroom.
So this is the second time I've seen this in this discussion. When making that claim start by showing the effect it will have. Look up all the flights where *some* people died and others survived, and provide numbers to back up your claim that people in tighter spaces had a higher chance of death.
You'll find the reality is on fatal flights, not even the emergency exit row people survived. On flights with some survivors, typically nearly everyone survived.
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delta and united have their upgraded coach. Delta calls it Delta comfort or something
back when we had regulation tickets cost more. back in the 80's my mom was quoted $700 or so in today's dollars for NYC to florida
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back when we had regulation tickets cost more.
Wasn't that also in part due to airlines being told where they could fly, and what they could charge for flying those routes? In that case, wouldn't comparing regulation era to regulating just things like legroom/pitch a bit disingenuous?
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Airlines that didn't adapt and lower prices
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>it wasn't worth ~$18/hour to be that much more comfortable
If it's $50 and the flight is over 2 hours, I'm taking the upgrade every time. I don't see that often though.
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They certainly know those of us who travel a lot and don't throw so much crap as us. I never pay for baggage for example.
When I've taken a break from traveling (E.G. when we had a new sprog) I lost my status and got exposed to traveling without status when I started traveling again. It sucked.
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>Where is the airline offering more legroom and less crammed cabins?
Maybe they should introduce a new section at the front of economy with a couple of extra inches of legroom and call it "Economy Plus".
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>Where is the airline offering more legroom and less crammed cabins?
Maybe they should introduce a new section at the front of economy with a couple of extra inches of legroom and call it "Economy Plus".
Except the prices for those seats are sometimes double. 3-4" of extra space and the ability to recline another 2" should only cost at most $50 more. Do the math on the revenue they are getting for those 12 extra seats and you'll see they are gouging you for premium economy.
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Competition to the bottom (Score:2)
When you factor inflation into the mix, profits per passenger have to be almost nothing for most seats. What we've received in return is cramped seats, terrible customer service, and frequent issues while flying.
I'm 5'8" so legroom has never been that much of an issue for me. My problem is that my shoulders are too wide for seats. It's extremely unco
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I'm seriously pondering traveling as freight (Score:5, Funny)
More legroom, fewer crying kids, what's not to like?
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Crash survivability. If enough people were willing to sign a wavier we could have bunk beds or something.
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If a commercial airliner crashes, you're fucked anyway. Have you ever flown? Do you know what it looks like when it's time to leave the plane? How long it takes from the opening of the doors 'til you get there? And this is in an orderly, controlled and prepared situation where nobody is panicky, everyone's composed and even if people are in a hurry to catch their next plane, most people stay fairly civil.
Now consider the same amount of people in the same room, just now as a panicky herd stampeding. You won'
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Pressurized and heated freight exists, so the only problem that remains is bathrooms.
Well, considering that I will have to take a few bottles of soda with me that problem should be manageable.
quit bitchin! (Score:2)
in china, due to the number of people who travel to meet family at chinese new year (85% of a major city's population just... ups and leaves for 2 weeks), they're cramming 1,500 people into the larger planes, with special "half-standing" seats. 71cm legroom? ha, you never had it so guuhhd.... mind you, on the last 5 13-hour flights i've been on (taipei-brussels) i've spent 3 hours standing and walking around, due to persistent deep vein thrombosis. i know the warning signs really well, now...
1st worlders aren't getting any smaller.. (Score:2)
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But obviously enough people are willing to pay a shitload more for buisness class if you kame them made as unconfortable as possible first in economy.
For anything less than 400 miles, drive (Score:2)
An hour to drive to airport, 90 minutes before departure for security, gate rape by TSA, one more hour from airport to destination, need for a car rental there, additional wait times on the rental shuttle and the rental office....
Flying is simply not worth it for less than 400 miles. Most people already avoid flights, squeezing the profits and revenue of airlines. That leads to more cost cutting and more squeezing of pa
stop flying (Score:2)
Terrible summary and premise (Score:2)
The 321 isn’t a “newer” version of the 320, it is a variant designed to hold more people with better economics.
The people have spoken, and they will squeeze into a smaller seat with less legroom to save $10. I am lucky in that I generally fly business class, but when I can no longer afford that option, there aren’t many options beyond the lowest common denominator. Most premium economy seats don’t make enough of a difference to make it palatable. You pay by the square foot of
American Airlines' "more room throughout coach" (Score:2)
In 2000, American Airlines rolled out their "more room throughout coach" program, in contrast to United's "Economy Plus" for frequent-fliers only. Did casual fliers flock to American as a result of the increased legroom? No, they did not. Today, American's program is quite similar to United's, plus it's possible to buy the extra legroom under both programs.
Casual fliers seem to want cheap fares above all. If you look at EasyJet or RyanAir in Europe, it seems like fliers relish the prospect of cheap flights
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That's swell, however, no one permitted to but them if another seat is $1 cheaper.
The pendulum swings both ways. (Score:2)
Right now it's on the tighter seating end of the swing. In a year or two the airlines will be advertising how they're taking seats out of planes to make customers more comfortable (just like they did a couple years ago). Nevermind that if they were really so concerned about my comfort and safety they wouldn't have put all those damned seats in the plane in the first place.
Hear this, airlines (and GOP): others may, but I don't forget.
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They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into - I say let em be crushed.
You're obviously not required to travel for business. If only it was so simple.
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They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into - I say let em be crushed.
You're obviously not required to travel for business. If only it was so simple.
Then you're not traveling enough for business or you'd get upgraded automatically and for free. Anyway, most businesses will let you pay for the upgrade cost out of your own pocket. And most airlines will let you book the upgrade separately immediately after ticket purchase so long as they do not buy a basic economy fare. And if your company is trying to save $80 on your ticket by buying basic economy then you ought to put your foot down and tell them you won't travel if they're not willing to spend a fe
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Then you're not traveling enough for business or you'd get upgraded automatically and for free. Anyway, most businesses will let you pay for the upgrade cost out of your own pocket. And most airlines will let you book the upgrade separately immediately after ticket purchase so long as they do not buy a basic economy fare. And if your company is trying to save $80 on your ticket by buying basic economy then you ought to put your foot down and tell them you won't travel if they're not willing to spend a few extra dollars so that you have the option to buy an upgrade.
See everyone? No problem! /s