- "seats measure up to 18-inches wide in economy, the same standard configuration found on Airbus widebody aircraft"
- "To minimise cabin pressure effects on the body, the cabin maintains a 6,000-feet average altitude pressure, roughly equivalent to that of a mountain ski town. This is the same cabin pressure as the modern A350 widebody, and it helps to reduce physical fatigue, headaches and jet lag."
- "Modern next-generation LED lighting systems aboard the A321XLR gently transition through customised hues, mimicking natural sunrises and sunsets to help reset the body’s circadian rhythm. Temperature control is split into three actively controlled zones, and airlines can even opt for heated floor panels to give passengers an extra touch of cozy luxury. Last but not least, advanced acoustic technologies have been integrated through the aircraft’s frame to minimise engine noise, resulting in a 50% noise footprint reduction compared to previous-generation single-aisle aircraft."
I've always wondered why airlines are so bad at managing jet lag for passengers. On a long-haul with Virgin Airways from SFO to LHR, instead of telling people to sleep early in the flight and waking them up for food before arriving at Heathrow at 12pm local time. They kept everyone up for hours with food and then let them sleep for about 2 hours before waking people up for arrival at 12pm.
Weird. My general approach is to switch to destination time as soon as I am seated and then act like I am in the destination timezone. Sleep as best I can if it is night at the destination and force myself awake if it is still day time. Seems much easier to synchronize that way.
The LEDs might work well though if they have been designed to do the job.
Generally because they prioritize ease of operations over helping customers overcome jetlag. In this particular situation I'd guess the ease of operation comes from:
* full customers are easier to deal with than hungry customers
* Doing meal service early avoids the risk that weather turns rough, making a late meal service hard/impossible.
* Crews are fresher earlier in the flight, and so are do a better job and prefer doing meals early.
* Waking customers up is extra work for crews, and may not be wanted by passengers.
Generally your body can only adjust 1 hour per day (varies by direction of travel). So shifting at the start of your travel is a bit late. You probably want to shift gradually a few days before travel if it’s a major shift.
Not really - if anything it argues against. You have no control or information about who did and didn’t start shifting when and people may be connecting from another flight and have different jet lag differentials to begin with. Serving it on the destination time is probably the best, but if someone hasn’t started shifting, they’ll be a hungry and cranky passenger vs you being cranky and tired after you’ve left the plane and you’re not the airline’s problem.
>They kept everyone up for hours with food and then let them sleep for about 2 hours before waking people up for arrival at 12pm.
Weird, must be airline specific? All the intercontinental flights I've taken recently follows a "take-off -> food -> dark -> food -> landing" schedule, regardless of what time it is outside.
On SFO to LHR flights I tend to eat in the lounge, down a shot of Dream Water and just sleep until LHR.
Sadly the Virgin arrivals lounge closes by the time you get through immigration and baggage collection, so you'll need to grab a bite to eat, but it's not the end of the world. I can usually average 6-8 hours of decent enough sleep doing that.
I just took this flight and that was not my experience. Food was served in the first 2 hours and the last 2 hours of the 10 hour flight leaving 6 hours of dark for sleep. Unfortunately my toddler did not want to sleep beyond his late nap so I was up for the entirety of it.
Amazingly, it has a "typical range" of 8,700 km. That is crazy for a single aisle aircraft. That potentially means flights of up to 10 hours at cruise speed around 833 km/h. I think most people would feel incredibly cramped in a single aisle aircraft for that long.
My dislike for single aisle aircraft isn't about cabin pressure or the "impression of a wider open space". It's about the fact that it is ACTUALLY cramped, and the _one_ aisle will be blocked for most of the flight.
In a typical single aisle airplane, sitting in coach, you're expected to use the restroom "in your cabin" which is at the rear. If you're sitting anywhere _except_ the rear, your access to the restroom will be blocked for a significant portion of shorter flights by food/bev carts.
By contrast, on a widebody, there are restrooms front and rear. If your access to one is blocked, you can go the other way, and you can _also_ use the front or rear to access the _other_ aisle. It's the difference between feeling totally confined versus freedom to move about (other than having to hassle any passengers between yourself and the aisle).
I admit, with limited cabin service in economy, on a longer flight, the blocked aisle isn't such an issue -- but on the typical 1.5-3h narrowbody flight, the food/bev service does seem to be a significant obstruction.
I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+. Airlines are slowly expanding premium cabins, and I'd be hopeful that narrowbodies like this permit further growth, but the demand seems to be increasing faster than the supply, so the prices are still crazy.
True, but it's not all roses. If you like to sit at the front of economy to exit as fast as possible when arriving, you will be sitting next to a heavily-used lav which is not enjoyable. You have to sit 4-6 rows back from the lav to avoid the annoyance.
> I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+.
Can you give a city pair where economy->business upgrade costs 5x? The industry standard is about 4x for direct flights and slights less for flights with a single stopover, e.g., fly Hongkong to London with a Middle East carrier.
I checked the prices. To be clear, I assume that we are talking about the "Economy Skycouch" programme. [1] Its better than just three economy sets because they lay down a small mattress that fills the whole seat area. It looks much more comfortable that trying to sleep across three regular economy seats! It looks like the prices are about 50-100% higher. That looks pretty reasonable to me, considering it is cheaper than buying the three economy seats. I wonder what the business analysis looked like for this offering. I guess they have some long-haul flights with low load factor, so they are looking to sell the empty seats and harvest some revenue.
Is there a term for a product which is really only really for a minority of it's users?
Air travel seems like this as most airlines and manufacturers seem to bend over backwards for their wealthy and high margin passengers and basically treat economy class as "fine I guess we'll throw the rest of you in the back"
Mobile games seem the apotheosis of this as a lot of games are really about finding whales and any enjoyment anyone else has is really an accidental side effect.
You’re describing the “whale model”. The entire product is aimed at the few big participants and everyone else is brought there only because there’s a chance they might be one. So it’s a probabilistic thing.
In any case, I don’t actually agree with you. The advent of Basic Economy as a category shows that. I always wanted an ultra cheap category in the US when I was young and now it exists. That category is valuable to the kind of person who is aiming simply to be transported from one place to another and can withstand discomfort.
Overall, I really like air travel in the US. There’s a straightforward sliding scale of comfort and price and you pick where you want to be on it. Flights are available often and easily. The prices also seem to align with things that would cost airlines and because they surge prices etc they’re able to balance availability and accessibility.
European air travel is also good with many options but I don’t have much experience with it recently. And of course the E Asian airlines are good. I don’t mind a classic Cathay but a Starlux plane is very nice even in Economy.
As someone who has flown every class available and routinely selects based on what and with whom I’m traveling, I think air travel today is more accessible and nicer than ever before.
> I don’t mind a classic Cathay but a Starlux plane is very nice even in Economy.
What makes Starlux so much better? When I think of Cathay, the advantages that come to mind: (1) excellent, professional service from flight attendants, even in cattle class, (2) pretty good food, (3) large check-in crew (shorter lines), (4) good gate location.
> Air travel seems like this as most airlines and manufacturers seem to bend over backwards for their wealthy and high margin passengers and basically treat economy class as ...
You got it backwards. If economy passengers preferred better services to cheaper fare, they would have chosen airlines with better services, and airlines would have to adapt accordingly, offering better and more expensive services.
They can't, because when it comes to their wallets, passengers don't actually prefer that, whatever they say online.
Business/first class passengers are a minority group who say "Fuck it, I have money, I want to be treated like I have money." So of course airlines offer them better service - at a much higher price.
> Business/first class passengers are a minority group who say "Fuck it, I have money, I want to be treated like I have money."
I'm pretty sure that that majority of people flying in business class are paid for by their employer. First class is another story: It is people not quite rich enough for private jets, but want to sleep on their flight. Hardly any business pays for first class tickets. However, many regular business travellers can accrue enough miles to get periodic upgrades.
> If economy passengers preferred better services to cheaper fare, they would have chosen airlines with better services
It's not quite that simple. Unless you fly a lot, it's hard to know about service differences between two airlines -- which has better air quality, more efficient disembarking, fewer recitals of the credit card pitch, etc. Passengers have to make their choices based on the subset of their preferences that they can actually compare, which is a pretty small subset.
Not that price isn't very important! But if I make my decision based on just (schedule, price, luggage policy, seat pitch, seat location), it's because that's all the info I've got.
Not aware of a term, per se, but this is typical of many service-related goods, especially in transportation and communications in which the fundamental underlying service (getting somewhere, getting a message somewhere) is not readily differentiated. That's directly applicable to the air-travel example here.
19th century French polymath (economist, engineer, bureaucrat) Jules Dupuit famously described this concerning railway carriage accomodations and the parlous state of third-class carriages:
It is not because of the several thousand francs which they would have to spend to cover the third class wagons or to upholster the benches. ... [I]t would happily sacrifice this [expense] for the sake of its popularity.
Its goal is to stop the traveler who can pay for the second class trip from going third class. It hurts the poor not because it wants them to personally suffer, but to scare the rich.
You'll find similar examples in digital / software goods, where product differentiation (and price discrimination) are often achieved by producing otherwise identical goods, and then selectively disabling features in the lower-priced variants. Microsoft Windows NT server vs. workstation was one early notorious example, though IBM also apparently included No-OP loops in servers which could be disabled for higher performance. See: <https://landley.net/history/mirror/ms/differences_nt.html>.
I don't think it's that. It's just what the mass market wants. For economy-class passengers, the overwhelmingly first-place concern is the price of the ticket. People accept shit service, shit food, random seat assignments, inconvenient timing and connections, etc. all for a cheaper ticket. For some people, the ticket cost is the only thing they care about.
So it's a race to the bottom. Airlines are famously low-margin businesses, so they really have no choice but to save as much money as they can by continually pushing the envelope on what depravities passengers will accept. And as they keep pushing, people complain, but they still eat it up and love the lower prices.
If economy class passengers would actually pay for perks and a nicer experience, the airlines would provide it. And sometimes they kinda-sorta do, via economy plus, premium economy, and similar (whatever the particular airline chooses to call it). But, by and large, people just care about the lowest price, so many planes don't even have mid-range service options, and some airlines don't even offer them at all.
The one I really don't accept is the Ryanair Russian Roulette pricing model, where they advertise cheap prices, but have many hidden tripwires that add a multiple of the sticker cost.
Airlines treat people like cattle then wonder why people behave like animals. I just did a cross country trip, about 4 hours per hop. I was so sore after that I've basically sworn off traveling that way ever again.
You can tell they keep removing space to fit more bodies in at all costs because they don't even try to line up seats with windows anymore. Multiple seats had windows in places that made them basically useless and one seat from what I could tell had two windows just due to the placement.
Don't even get me started on the cart that goes up the aisle handing out dry cookies to everyone followed by the person with a trash bag coming along to gather it from you.
I had school buses as a kid that were more comfortable and the people better behaved.
Everybody but the wealthy shops for airline tickets with price as their only criterion. Airlines are rational agents who operate in a famously competitive and low-margin business, so they respond to this demand-- indeed, they don't have any choice.
I have a lot of complaints about products and services that I can chalk up to various market failures or sinister actors, but poor airline experience is entirely on us, the consumer. Our revealed preference is for the lowest possible ticket price all else be damned.
I have racked up some air miles in my time. I am not wealthy, and price is a major criterion, but there are some airlines and airports I avoid at nearly all costs. I wish there were enough like me to put pressure on airlines to do better, but alas it's a losing battle it seems.
The safety, even on the budget airlines is amazing. You wonder though, if they sold seats for $50, to get to the other side of the world, but you had a 10% chance of dying, how many people would take it.
Nilay Patel (I'm gonna get this slightly wrong) has this story where he was talking to an airline CEO about standing-only tickets and the guy said "I know two things. If we did standing-only tickets we'd get roasted by the public, and those tickets would need the most popular tickets by far."
If you are flying a professionally managed twin jet engine aircraft (not turbo-prop), like Netjets, then the real world safety difference is negligible.
This would make for an interesting aspect of a dystopian future. Accepted liability as a slider basically. There would obviously be entire regimes around auditing the published numbers (since companies would be incentivized to make their options appear less risky than they are). Pretty anarcho-capitalist.
Ah but it’s 1% that you bought though 2 out of 100 of the last flights crashed. You ask for a refund or you pull out the pandas to check the likelihood they aren’t living up to the promise?
It's worth remembering that the airline market is very competitive and this happens because it matches consumer preferences. Yes, nobody wants to be crammed into a tiny seat. But given the choice between a large seat or a tiny seat that costs $5 less, people reliably choose to save $5. The only reason the experience is so miserable is because the flying public will accept nearly anything to save a little money.
It's also worth remembering that there are various premium options available. You can pay extra for economy plus or really splurge on business/first. "That's too expensive" OK well you made your choice....
The parent poster said "Economy plus", not "Premium Economy".
And while the names are confusingly similar, Economy Plus is usually a seat with extra legroom (but no additional width) and is a small price bump, but Premium Economy is a larger wider seat with generous recline (but not lay-flat), and is a large price increase, sometimes approaching business class pricing.
Also adding to confusion is that different routes (and distances) have different hard products.
"Premium economy" on an international long haul flight is often the same (or very similar) seat as "first class" on a domestic flight.
I've recently been blessed with being able to afford flying on lie-flat seats (international business class). That said, I've found what you are calling "economy plus" to be the sweet spot.
You get slightly more leg room, but also priority boarding so that you don't have to worry about getting your bag gatechecked. It's also only slightly more expensive than main cabin regular economy.
"Premium economy" is significantly more expensive, and while you do get a bigger seat, it's not lie-flat. You can recline more, but the few times I've flown it, you are still able to piss off the passenger behind you when you recline with all the shenanigans that can entail. Thus I find it not worth the premium.
Flying LAX to SYD and return in Delta Premium Select, at least 30 of the 40 seats wer empty, despite economy being full. I was curious about this, and learned that Delta had made a decision to largely stop bumping passengers up in many cases because they felt that they were passengers who would have paid for PS, but it had gotten to the point of passengers taking their chances ("I'll buy a Comfort Plus ticket, that usually gets me upgraded, and is cheaper.")
The flip side is that those upgrades were a cheap way for delta to buy loyalty. I know a lot of people who flew many times a year on delta only and now look for other airlines.
For coach, I wish they would just stack people in laying down. Laying down for the flight would be much better than sitting. I don't see why they couldn't get the same amount of people in if they configured the plane correctly.
We flew from IAD to DUB on Aer Lingus a month ago. Outbound was an A321neo LR/XLR and it was not bad at all. Legroom was fine (for me at 5'7"), big overhead bins should be required these days, and the entertainment setup was passable. The only complaint was flaky seat-back trays that required a real SLAM to latch. The damn things were constantly dropping down, getting slammed back not quite hard enough, and falling again. Not all of them, but enough it was noticeable.
Return was on their A330, which was noticeable worse in every way EXCEPT it's 2-4-2 seatings, so we had a pair of outside seats to ourselves, where on the A321, it's 3-3, so you have a neighbor in the window seat.
The -300s in use by Aer Lingus are a bit newer than that (but the 200s they use for west coast routes are in fact ~20 years old), but not by much. IAG has orders for 21 A330Neos, which, I believe, retain the 2-4-2 layout in economy.
Sure they do. Cabin refits are pretty standard. A lot of the 777s flying for AA, Delta, and United were delivered with very different interior configs.
Because everyone sleeps soundly with bright blue LED lighting blaring in their faces.
I fail to see what's innovative about "we shoved business class seats into a narrow-body aircraft".
An A321 is still an A321.
Flying internationally in a single-aisle aircraft is under any circumstances torture no matter how you sugar coat it: "Come fly in our modern, innovative sardine can."
By the way BA did this years ago with their London City A318 which doesn't exist anymore because it was a failure that merely burned money.
I never understood why the airplane size matters so much to an individual passenger. What's the difference to me, as a standard economy passenger, between flying internationally in an A321 or a 787? I have the same tiny seat either way. My knees are crammed into the next seat's back the same on both. I see this sentiment stated frequently and I just don't get it.
I don't get it either, but my guess is that the narrower plane induces claustrophobia at higher rates. If you're in a widebody, you can look to your left or right (depending on where you are), and see a decent amount of plane on either side of you. Not so for a narrowbody.
That flight was an odd bird from the outset. It didn't have the range to make NY in a single go, so it stopped in Shannon Ireland to refuel, where passengers deplaned, went through US Preclearance, and rebounded. IIRC, the US->UK return was non-stop. So one leg was longer than normal. Ultimately, it was dying on it's own when COVID drove the final nail into the coffin.
It was bad for IRROPs too. You'd have to schlep over to Heathrow in case of any issues. And you have to explain to your boss why you picked the weird oddball flight over the reliable Heathrow with tons of flights to New York
> Because everyone sleeps soundly with bright blue LED lighting blaring in their faces.
Apropos of anything else, and leaving aside intensity, almost all of the research into blue light and sleep points to it having nearly no effect. Maybe less surprising when one of the earlier corporate proponents of this was Luxottica who just saw another opportunity to make money.
Not covered: the inevitable even-smaller lavatory to further insult the dignity of the flying public.
At this point, the designers of narrow-body interiors should be actively shamed for how hostile they have made lavatory designs. In a world in which every major flying population is aging and more overweight, yet every generation of airplane lavatories is even narrower and less accessible for everyone.
Lavatories are seen as a waste of space because they cannot seat passengers in it. A regulation is required when the incentives are misaligned with the reality.
Indeed, regulation is the only way to protect passengers from market greed here, but the airplane makers play a critical role in what designs they make available to airlines. Airbus and Boeing both like to market their newer designs and interiors in terms of passenger comfort (lower cabin altitude, reduced noise, larger windows, etc) so clearly they (and their customers) understand that passenger comfort justifies spending somewhat more than the bare minimum. And given past designs (and designs still fitted in widebodies) they very much know how to build useful lavatories.
I suspect in time there will actually be safety consequences to the continued downsizing of airplane lavatories. There are already a number of serious incidents that have been caused by fluid leaks from galleys and lavatories (IIRC Quantas came pretty close to losing a 747-400 due to a kitchen leak leading to massive water intrusion into the main electrical/avionics bay - once you end up pouring large quantities of water on your avionics all bets are off about the systems failures that will happen and you are well beyond any backup/redundancy that has been designed in, and during the 60s and 70s the USAF experienced serious corrosion of flight control cables on C-130s due to urine "leakage"). Too-small lavatories basically guarantee that water and urine are going to end up in undesirable locations and at best they will cause expensive interior corrosion and at worst they will cause serious corrosion to the airframe or critical equipment.
Introduce a larger one that you have to sign up for digitally to wait in line and be notified when it is available and charge for the privilege. Hell, make it auction based so if you want to jump the line you can if you pay for it.
I am laughing reading your "hellish capitalism" proposals. How about we add surge pricing? Or fully dynamic pricing, so you arrive at the bog and learn that it costs 30 quid to relieve yourself?
Whenever I see kids traveling in first class, it grosses me out a little. When I was a kid, we didn't have the money to fly at all; it was just road trips for us, when we could manage it.
I really think parents putting their kids in first class does them a disservice. And on top of that, if they're at all disruptive, that's incredibly rude to other first class passengers who have paid quite a bit of money for a better experience.
I always think of the early scene in the movie Home Alone when Catherine O'Hara's character asks her husband if they should feel bad about the kids flying coach while they're in business, and he assures her that the kids are fine. That's the right way to do it!
(Before the inevitable "but!"s, yes, I know that won't work super well if you just have one kid traveling with you; it's understandable that you might not feel comfortable with them sitting alone. And of course they need to be of a certain age, or have old enough siblings, to be on their own in that situation. But that's not an excuse to bring your kids up to first or business class. You should be flying with them in economy if they can't sit there on their own.)
Qatar's 777s have a fairly good setup, where the middle business class rows can be turned into something of a pod, with separators removed in both axes so you can have four people in a 2x2 facing each other setup...
Remember that airlines almost always opt for the more cramped and cheaper variants of interiors, asking "ok but how do we fit even more cattle in here?"
The thing is, this is far from universal. People don't buy a substantially worse smartphone or car to save $5. But they'll accept a substantially worse product to save $5 on airline tickets.
Which two airlines have substantially different products for a $5 difference?
If you didn't mean literally $5 perhaps you can give us some real examples of cost differences?
Personally I find so little difference between airlines in economy these days. And Premium Economy is nowhere close to a '$5' difference long haul these days
They don't, because competition erases those differences. It's a very competitive market. If people were willing to pay a little extra for a few more inches of seat pitch in economy, you'd have an airline that offered a few more inches of seat pitch in economy with slightly higher fares.
Elsewhere people are saying it’s not a realistic alternative because it’s too expensive. I think people just want a better product without paying any more money. I hate cramped economy seats too, and I fly in them anyway, but I acknowledge that I’m deliberately choosing money over comfort and it’s my own doing.
It's a shame everyone can't fly first class, but I guess this is just life? I've had the opportunity to take an international business class flight and couldn't believe how great I felt after the trip. Huge difference getting that extra legroom to actually lay flat and sleep.
Also, the business class staff are so nice, they make you feel like a million bucks.
How about seats that are adjustable to fit small people. I'm sick of sitting in seats with concave lumbar regions. It tears up my back. I know, I know, the seats need to accommodate large, more spherical people. Cant there be an adjustable lumbar support though?
The manufacturers are willing to put in whatever seats the operators want, and airlines want to have the lightest, most compact seats possible because that allows them to offer the lowest price, which is what passengers choose.
My wife's short so she's actually quite uncomfortable in a business class seat unless it's reclined-- seat bottom length is an issue for her, sometimes even in economy. On the flipside, I'm of pretty average height, but the flat seat cushions mean I always feel like I'm sitting awkwardly on my tailbone. I wonder why they couldn't just be more like a car seat, with some thigh support. I'm not sure I've ever been in a car seat less comfortable than the _best_ economy airline seat.
Truly, a first world problem, if I ever heard of one! What is wrong with her carrying a small collapsable foot stool? (You can find ultra-light plastic ones on Amazon for around 10 USD.) That seems like an easy fix for someone willing to pay thousands for a business class seat.
> I wonder why they couldn't just be more like a car seat, with some thigh support. I'm not sure I've ever been in a car seat less comfortable than the _best_ economy airline seat.
Whenever a pillow is included on a flight, I always stuff it behind my lower back. I can't remember the last time I actually used a pillow for its intended purpose when not flying in a lie-flat seat.
You could consider sitting in an exit row. The seats in front of that row are typically prohibited from reclining in order not to block the exit. Or you can sit behind a bulkhead.
I don't get the griping with the reclining. I see it all over reddit and here. Never in real life. It has never affected my life in the least bit to have someone in the seat ahead of me recline their seat. It doesn't affect knee room at all. You lose what maybe 3 inches of dead air space if that at the top of their seat.
There are definitely airline seats where the reclining seats impact the knee room. I'm 6'2" but I seem to have more of it in the legs than typical, which really shows up in non-extended legroom airlines. I buy the upgrade whenever possible, but sometimes it's just not available.
In a regular (not extended) seat, I have two positions that work: my ankles crossed and tucked up close to my seat with knees spread, and nothing in the underseat in front of me and then putting my feet there, with my legs straightened (wedging my thighs into the edge of my seat). Even then, my knees are high enough that usually the person in front of me reclining will recline the seat back into my knees (best case) or those metal side rails into my knees. Especially enjoyable when the suddenly recline the seat.
Not everyones body geometry is the same. My son is around the same height as me, but when we sit in the car he's like half a head taller than me, he carries a lot of his height in his trunk where I carry it in my legs.
I'm 5'9", and rarely have a problem with the person in front of my reclining, but I can absolutely see how it could create comfort issues for taller people.
It is more difficult to use a laptop on a tray table if the person in front of you is reclining; you often end up having to angle the screen down to the point where it's not great. In that case I often have to ditch the tray table and put it on my lap, which is less comfortable, but at least lets me angle the screen how I prefer.
It's only dead space if you are not using it. I like to open my laptop and place it on the tray. When the person in front reclines, I am forced to sit still for the duration of the flight. I usually fly from Europe to Asia, so 10-12 hours.
Not baffling at all. When I'm in an economy seat with typical seat pitch, someone reclining in front of me makes it difficult to impossible to use a laptop on the tray table. The recline angle of the seat means you have to angle the screen downward in an uncomfortable way. I'll often end up putting the laptop directly on my lap in that situation, but that creates other comfort/ergonomic issues.
(Not the person you're asking, but...) I don't want to adversely affect the person behind me, but I also accept the right of the person in front of me to recline if they want to. It's not easy being me.
Yeah, I don't understand this - pretty much every long haul flight I've ever been on has been like this: meal service finishes, lights dim a bit, everyone reclines, lights go out, people either doze off or watch the IFE.
To be fair, I have actually once seen someone not recline, but they had four or five visits from cabin crew before the lights went off making sure they were okay, or if they wanted to be moved, or if there was a fault with their seat. Like, even the crew thought it was an unusual occurrence.
Yet every thread that touches on this on HN, there are people saying "I never recline, what about the person behind me?". And then they complain about being uncomfortable!
If you are tall, then no amount of reclining is going to give you more space. The knees are too far forward to stretch your legs, _especially_ when the person in front of you reclines.
I'm unusually tall and flying has always been unpleasant no matter what. I can actually deal with the reclining because it's actually physically impossible for the person ahead of me to recline since my knees are in the way. What really gets me is the fact that the seat back only comes up to my neck and I can't sleep because my head just flops around. I've been meaning to find some security-friendly contraption that could extend the back a little bit to immobilize me a bit better.
I don't get this "inconsiderate" thing. The seats recline. They're designed to do so. They're allowed to do so. Airlines allow you to recline. Yes, if you're reclining during meal service, you're a dick. But any other time (outside takeoff and landing) is fair game.
If you're tall, pay for economy plus or premium economy. If that's not offered on your route, that sucks, but getting pissed that someone will use their allowed recline space isn't fair of you.
If you want to get mad, get mad at all passengers collectively for treating ticket cost as their only criterion when booking flights.
The back reclines. The bum and legs don't move. My knees usually only just fit. When someone reclines their seat usually presses on my knees. Those few cm matter.
Sometimes the seat design is such that my knees block the recline. If I'm unlucky it sucks.
I am 6'7". I regularly have to ask the person in front not to recline on some layouts. I get aisle/exit row seats if possible, but sometimes it's just not possible. For euro city flights there is no premium economy and the business class seats don't have more legroom either, so there's often very few options for me.
For short flights I will just tuck my legs awkwardly when necessary and have to get up to stretch regularly.
Maybe its due to the lessons learned, the extreme conservatism in air travel should be up to a disruption. It's nice that they make blue light to look like the sky but:
1) The windows are disappointing. This is, I think, due to the fatigue caused by large rectangular windows that previously caused a disaster but it begs for improvement. A way to make large windows or get rid of all the windows and use very high definition screens to imitate windows with live footage would be nicer
2) Noise is still a problem. I am sure they are trying hard, even the engines are designed around addressing the noise issue but it would be a huge improvement to have this solved. ANC maybe?
3) Automate the pilot out. This is I believe an area where plane makers are pioneers but we still got pilots, I would love to see flying with a plane becoming about the same as taking an elevator.
IMHO travel times are reasonable, the improvements in comfort, cost and practicality are due. Airports themselves too are due for an overhaul, it shouldn't be taking hours to get on a travel machine.
It only takes hours for administrative reasons. Pre-COVID, I used to show up at IAD 25 minutes before departure time when I knew security would be fast and I could get right to my gate.
Overall, facilities that handle millions of people tend to have a lot of "standing in line" and the slightest disruptions can mean you'll be standing in line for an extra hour.
That's a complete non-starter for now and the next decades. Fully automated operation for 1-dimensional transport (trains) is a solved issue, for 2D, not so much and most certainly not for 3D.
Even though modern planes are very reliable, too many things can go wrong during flight to leave it to a machine - and for what? Just for bragging rights?
Main points:
- "seats measure up to 18-inches wide in economy, the same standard configuration found on Airbus widebody aircraft"
- "To minimise cabin pressure effects on the body, the cabin maintains a 6,000-feet average altitude pressure, roughly equivalent to that of a mountain ski town. This is the same cabin pressure as the modern A350 widebody, and it helps to reduce physical fatigue, headaches and jet lag."
- "Modern next-generation LED lighting systems aboard the A321XLR gently transition through customised hues, mimicking natural sunrises and sunsets to help reset the body’s circadian rhythm. Temperature control is split into three actively controlled zones, and airlines can even opt for heated floor panels to give passengers an extra touch of cozy luxury. Last but not least, advanced acoustic technologies have been integrated through the aircraft’s frame to minimise engine noise, resulting in a 50% noise footprint reduction compared to previous-generation single-aisle aircraft."
I've always wondered why airlines are so bad at managing jet lag for passengers. On a long-haul with Virgin Airways from SFO to LHR, instead of telling people to sleep early in the flight and waking them up for food before arriving at Heathrow at 12pm local time. They kept everyone up for hours with food and then let them sleep for about 2 hours before waking people up for arrival at 12pm.
Weird. My general approach is to switch to destination time as soon as I am seated and then act like I am in the destination timezone. Sleep as best I can if it is night at the destination and force myself awake if it is still day time. Seems much easier to synchronize that way.
The LEDs might work well though if they have been designed to do the job.
Generally because they prioritize ease of operations over helping customers overcome jetlag. In this particular situation I'd guess the ease of operation comes from:
* full customers are easier to deal with than hungry customers
* Doing meal service early avoids the risk that weather turns rough, making a late meal service hard/impossible.
* Crews are fresher earlier in the flight, and so are do a better job and prefer doing meals early.
* Waking customers up is extra work for crews, and may not be wanted by passengers.
Generally your body can only adjust 1 hour per day (varies by direction of travel). So shifting at the start of your travel is a bit late. You probably want to shift gradually a few days before travel if it’s a major shift.
But that argues equally strongly for what the parent suggests in terms of flight meal/sleep timing.
Not really - if anything it argues against. You have no control or information about who did and didn’t start shifting when and people may be connecting from another flight and have different jet lag differentials to begin with. Serving it on the destination time is probably the best, but if someone hasn’t started shifting, they’ll be a hungry and cranky passenger vs you being cranky and tired after you’ve left the plane and you’re not the airline’s problem.
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>They kept everyone up for hours with food and then let them sleep for about 2 hours before waking people up for arrival at 12pm.
Weird, must be airline specific? All the intercontinental flights I've taken recently follows a "take-off -> food -> dark -> food -> landing" schedule, regardless of what time it is outside.
I suspect a lot of people expect an airline meal on their long haul flight, so that’s what’s done.
Like you, one can always ignore them - I’ve missed many a dinner and breakfast by sleeping through them on a flight back to Europe.
On SFO to LHR flights I tend to eat in the lounge, down a shot of Dream Water and just sleep until LHR.
Sadly the Virgin arrivals lounge closes by the time you get through immigration and baggage collection, so you'll need to grab a bite to eat, but it's not the end of the world. I can usually average 6-8 hours of decent enough sleep doing that.
I just took this flight and that was not my experience. Food was served in the first 2 hours and the last 2 hours of the 10 hour flight leaving 6 hours of dark for sleep. Unfortunately my toddler did not want to sleep beyond his late nap so I was up for the entirety of it.
Yeah there's no way you're going to fix the jet lag on SFO-LHR or any similar city pair in one day
I wasn't aware of this model before the article. I had a look at the stats on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A321neo#Specifications
Amazingly, it has a "typical range" of 8,700 km. That is crazy for a single aisle aircraft. That potentially means flights of up to 10 hours at cruise speed around 833 km/h. I think most people would feel incredibly cramped in a single aisle aircraft for that long.
I also found a list of the longest scheduled commercial flights with this aircraft: https://simpleflying.com/over-8-hours-30-minutes-the-worlds-...
The longest is Madrid (Spain) to Washington, D.C. (USA) at 9h 40m. Yikes.
The pairings look similar to 787/A350 (point to point for non-hub cities), only the city pairs are even smaller.
Will the speakers sound like a dollar store model or are we going to finally understand what the pilots are saying?
The issue in that case will be the headset microphone and an unsophisticated audio chain with clipping.
Oh, yeah, Airbus is in Europe. In the US, many "mountain ski towns" are considerably above 6,000 feet.
My dislike for single aisle aircraft isn't about cabin pressure or the "impression of a wider open space". It's about the fact that it is ACTUALLY cramped, and the _one_ aisle will be blocked for most of the flight.
In a typical single aisle airplane, sitting in coach, you're expected to use the restroom "in your cabin" which is at the rear. If you're sitting anywhere _except_ the rear, your access to the restroom will be blocked for a significant portion of shorter flights by food/bev carts.
By contrast, on a widebody, there are restrooms front and rear. If your access to one is blocked, you can go the other way, and you can _also_ use the front or rear to access the _other_ aisle. It's the difference between feeling totally confined versus freedom to move about (other than having to hassle any passengers between yourself and the aisle).
I admit, with limited cabin service in economy, on a longer flight, the blocked aisle isn't such an issue -- but on the typical 1.5-3h narrowbody flight, the food/bev service does seem to be a significant obstruction.
I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+. Airlines are slowly expanding premium cabins, and I'd be hopeful that narrowbodies like this permit further growth, but the demand seems to be increasing faster than the supply, so the prices are still crazy.
The new, larger narrowbodies are adding a lav at the front of economy which helps with this. https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/company/aircraft/boeing-737...
True, but it's not all roses. If you like to sit at the front of economy to exit as fast as possible when arriving, you will be sitting next to a heavily-used lav which is not enjoyable. You have to sit 4-6 rows back from the lav to avoid the annoyance.
There will always be good seats and bad seats. They can't all be good seats.
Apparently paying for an upgrade to a nicer cabin isnt an option either.
"I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+. "
If you look at pictures it seems like the lie-flat seats take up roughly 6x the space of what the economy seats take up.
New Zealand allows you to book three seats in a row and covert it to a bed which seems like a nice alternative.
I checked the prices. To be clear, I assume that we are talking about the "Economy Skycouch" programme. [1] Its better than just three economy sets because they lay down a small mattress that fills the whole seat area. It looks much more comfortable that trying to sleep across three regular economy seats! It looks like the prices are about 50-100% higher. That looks pretty reasonable to me, considering it is cheaper than buying the three economy seats. I wonder what the business analysis looked like for this offering. I guess they have some long-haul flights with low load factor, so they are looking to sell the empty seats and harvest some revenue.
[1] https://www.airnewzealand.co.jp/economy-skycouch
Is there a term for a product which is really only really for a minority of it's users?
Air travel seems like this as most airlines and manufacturers seem to bend over backwards for their wealthy and high margin passengers and basically treat economy class as "fine I guess we'll throw the rest of you in the back"
Mobile games seem the apotheosis of this as a lot of games are really about finding whales and any enjoyment anyone else has is really an accidental side effect.
You’re describing the “whale model”. The entire product is aimed at the few big participants and everyone else is brought there only because there’s a chance they might be one. So it’s a probabilistic thing.
In any case, I don’t actually agree with you. The advent of Basic Economy as a category shows that. I always wanted an ultra cheap category in the US when I was young and now it exists. That category is valuable to the kind of person who is aiming simply to be transported from one place to another and can withstand discomfort.
Overall, I really like air travel in the US. There’s a straightforward sliding scale of comfort and price and you pick where you want to be on it. Flights are available often and easily. The prices also seem to align with things that would cost airlines and because they surge prices etc they’re able to balance availability and accessibility.
European air travel is also good with many options but I don’t have much experience with it recently. And of course the E Asian airlines are good. I don’t mind a classic Cathay but a Starlux plane is very nice even in Economy.
As someone who has flown every class available and routinely selects based on what and with whom I’m traveling, I think air travel today is more accessible and nicer than ever before.
> Air travel seems like this as most airlines and manufacturers seem to bend over backwards for their wealthy and high margin passengers and basically treat economy class as ...
You got it backwards. If economy passengers preferred better services to cheaper fare, they would have chosen airlines with better services, and airlines would have to adapt accordingly, offering better and more expensive services.
They can't, because when it comes to their wallets, passengers don't actually prefer that, whatever they say online.
Business/first class passengers are a minority group who say "Fuck it, I have money, I want to be treated like I have money." So of course airlines offer them better service - at a much higher price.
> If economy passengers preferred better services to cheaper fare, they would have chosen airlines with better services
It's not quite that simple. Unless you fly a lot, it's hard to know about service differences between two airlines -- which has better air quality, more efficient disembarking, fewer recitals of the credit card pitch, etc. Passengers have to make their choices based on the subset of their preferences that they can actually compare, which is a pretty small subset.
Not that price isn't very important! But if I make my decision based on just (schedule, price, luggage policy, seat pitch, seat location), it's because that's all the info I've got.
There is also the airline brand as an information. Some are explicitly branded as low-cost/low-comfort other not.
Some of us are saying "Fuck it. I have money and want to fit in my seat"
Not aware of a term, per se, but this is typical of many service-related goods, especially in transportation and communications in which the fundamental underlying service (getting somewhere, getting a message somewhere) is not readily differentiated. That's directly applicable to the air-travel example here.
19th century French polymath (economist, engineer, bureaucrat) Jules Dupuit famously described this concerning railway carriage accomodations and the parlous state of third-class carriages:
It is not because of the several thousand francs which they would have to spend to cover the third class wagons or to upholster the benches. ... [I]t would happily sacrifice this [expense] for the sake of its popularity.
Its goal is to stop the traveler who can pay for the second class trip from going third class. It hurts the poor not because it wants them to personally suffer, but to scare the rich.
<https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/why-does-air-travel-suck-...>
More on Dupuit:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Dupuit>
You'll find similar examples in digital / software goods, where product differentiation (and price discrimination) are often achieved by producing otherwise identical goods, and then selectively disabling features in the lower-priced variants. Microsoft Windows NT server vs. workstation was one early notorious example, though IBM also apparently included No-OP loops in servers which could be disabled for higher performance. See: <https://landley.net/history/mirror/ms/differences_nt.html>.
(I've ... mentioned Dupuit previously: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.)
I don't think it's that. It's just what the mass market wants. For economy-class passengers, the overwhelmingly first-place concern is the price of the ticket. People accept shit service, shit food, random seat assignments, inconvenient timing and connections, etc. all for a cheaper ticket. For some people, the ticket cost is the only thing they care about.
So it's a race to the bottom. Airlines are famously low-margin businesses, so they really have no choice but to save as much money as they can by continually pushing the envelope on what depravities passengers will accept. And as they keep pushing, people complain, but they still eat it up and love the lower prices.
If economy class passengers would actually pay for perks and a nicer experience, the airlines would provide it. And sometimes they kinda-sorta do, via economy plus, premium economy, and similar (whatever the particular airline chooses to call it). But, by and large, people just care about the lowest price, so many planes don't even have mid-range service options, and some airlines don't even offer them at all.
The one I really don't accept is the Ryanair Russian Roulette pricing model, where they advertise cheap prices, but have many hidden tripwires that add a multiple of the sticker cost.
Casinos work in a similar manner. Whale customers get way more attention that other customers.
Even in these marketing shots they could not make those thin and straight seats look anything but terribly uncomfortable.
Airlines treat people like cattle then wonder why people behave like animals. I just did a cross country trip, about 4 hours per hop. I was so sore after that I've basically sworn off traveling that way ever again.
You can tell they keep removing space to fit more bodies in at all costs because they don't even try to line up seats with windows anymore. Multiple seats had windows in places that made them basically useless and one seat from what I could tell had two windows just due to the placement.
Don't even get me started on the cart that goes up the aisle handing out dry cookies to everyone followed by the person with a trash bag coming along to gather it from you.
I had school buses as a kid that were more comfortable and the people better behaved.
Everybody but the wealthy shops for airline tickets with price as their only criterion. Airlines are rational agents who operate in a famously competitive and low-margin business, so they respond to this demand-- indeed, they don't have any choice.
I have a lot of complaints about products and services that I can chalk up to various market failures or sinister actors, but poor airline experience is entirely on us, the consumer. Our revealed preference is for the lowest possible ticket price all else be damned.
I have racked up some air miles in my time. I am not wealthy, and price is a major criterion, but there are some airlines and airports I avoid at nearly all costs. I wish there were enough like me to put pressure on airlines to do better, but alas it's a losing battle it seems.
This is called a race to the bottom.
The safety, even on the budget airlines is amazing. You wonder though, if they sold seats for $50, to get to the other side of the world, but you had a 10% chance of dying, how many people would take it.
Nilay Patel (I'm gonna get this slightly wrong) has this story where he was talking to an airline CEO about standing-only tickets and the guy said "I know two things. If we did standing-only tickets we'd get roasted by the public, and those tickets would need the most popular tickets by far."
This was RyanAir's CEO. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/feb/28/ryanair-sta...
people pay a lot more for private jets which are comparatively a lot more dangerous
If you are flying a professionally managed twin jet engine aircraft (not turbo-prop), like Netjets, then the real world safety difference is negligible.
This would make for an interesting aspect of a dystopian future. Accepted liability as a slider basically. There would obviously be entire regimes around auditing the published numbers (since companies would be incentivized to make their options appear less risky than they are). Pretty anarcho-capitalist.
Ah but it’s 1% that you bought though 2 out of 100 of the last flights crashed. You ask for a refund or you pull out the pandas to check the likelihood they aren’t living up to the promise?
It's worth remembering that the airline market is very competitive and this happens because it matches consumer preferences. Yes, nobody wants to be crammed into a tiny seat. But given the choice between a large seat or a tiny seat that costs $5 less, people reliably choose to save $5. The only reason the experience is so miserable is because the flying public will accept nearly anything to save a little money.
It's also worth remembering that there are various premium options available. You can pay extra for economy plus or really splurge on business/first. "That's too expensive" OK well you made your choice....
Premium Economy is so much more expensive than steerage class that it's not a realistic 'option' for the majority of potential passengers.
> " OK well you made your choice...."
The only choice for most people is "fly cheap" or "don't go".
The parent poster said "Economy plus", not "Premium Economy".
And while the names are confusingly similar, Economy Plus is usually a seat with extra legroom (but no additional width) and is a small price bump, but Premium Economy is a larger wider seat with generous recline (but not lay-flat), and is a large price increase, sometimes approaching business class pricing.
Also adding to confusion is that different routes (and distances) have different hard products.
"Premium economy" on an international long haul flight is often the same (or very similar) seat as "first class" on a domestic flight.
I've recently been blessed with being able to afford flying on lie-flat seats (international business class). That said, I've found what you are calling "economy plus" to be the sweet spot.
You get slightly more leg room, but also priority boarding so that you don't have to worry about getting your bag gatechecked. It's also only slightly more expensive than main cabin regular economy.
"Premium economy" is significantly more expensive, and while you do get a bigger seat, it's not lie-flat. You can recline more, but the few times I've flown it, you are still able to piss off the passenger behind you when you recline with all the shenanigans that can entail. Thus I find it not worth the premium.
Flying LAX to SYD and return in Delta Premium Select, at least 30 of the 40 seats wer empty, despite economy being full. I was curious about this, and learned that Delta had made a decision to largely stop bumping passengers up in many cases because they felt that they were passengers who would have paid for PS, but it had gotten to the point of passengers taking their chances ("I'll buy a Comfort Plus ticket, that usually gets me upgraded, and is cheaper.")
The flip side is that those upgrades were a cheap way for delta to buy loyalty. I know a lot of people who flew many times a year on delta only and now look for other airlines.
If you don't have a carry on, just get up and move. The flight crew has better things to do than check if you're in your assigned seat.
Then be grateful that travel is cheap enough that you can go, even if it's uncomfortable.
K shaped economy.
The pressurization system being improved is the only thing of note in this promotional material that is for some reason on HN.
For coach, I wish they would just stack people in laying down. Laying down for the flight would be much better than sitting. I don't see why they couldn't get the same amount of people in if they configured the plane correctly.
As much as I'd prefer this, I assume it's for evacuation reasons. Well, that, and people wouldn't like feeling trapped.
We flew from IAD to DUB on Aer Lingus a month ago. Outbound was an A321neo LR/XLR and it was not bad at all. Legroom was fine (for me at 5'7"), big overhead bins should be required these days, and the entertainment setup was passable. The only complaint was flaky seat-back trays that required a real SLAM to latch. The damn things were constantly dropping down, getting slammed back not quite hard enough, and falling again. Not all of them, but enough it was noticeable.
Return was on their A330, which was noticeable worse in every way EXCEPT it's 2-4-2 seatings, so we had a pair of outside seats to ourselves, where on the A321, it's 3-3, so you have a neighbor in the window seat.
All these 2-4-2 are 20 year old aircrafts - seats are not slim. so less legroom. Airlines don't retrofit.
Delta has 2-4-2 on their new A330Neos: https://www.delta.com/eu/en/aircraft/airbus/a330-900
The -300s in use by Aer Lingus are a bit newer than that (but the 200s they use for west coast routes are in fact ~20 years old), but not by much. IAG has orders for 21 A330Neos, which, I believe, retain the 2-4-2 layout in economy.
Sure they do. Cabin refits are pretty standard. A lot of the 777s flying for AA, Delta, and United were delivered with very different interior configs.
Because everyone sleeps soundly with bright blue LED lighting blaring in their faces.
I fail to see what's innovative about "we shoved business class seats into a narrow-body aircraft".
An A321 is still an A321.
Flying internationally in a single-aisle aircraft is under any circumstances torture no matter how you sugar coat it: "Come fly in our modern, innovative sardine can."
By the way BA did this years ago with their London City A318 which doesn't exist anymore because it was a failure that merely burned money.
I never understood why the airplane size matters so much to an individual passenger. What's the difference to me, as a standard economy passenger, between flying internationally in an A321 or a 787? I have the same tiny seat either way. My knees are crammed into the next seat's back the same on both. I see this sentiment stated frequently and I just don't get it.
I don't get it either, but my guess is that the narrower plane induces claustrophobia at higher rates. If you're in a widebody, you can look to your left or right (depending on where you are), and see a decent amount of plane on either side of you. Not so for a narrowbody.
That flight was an odd bird from the outset. It didn't have the range to make NY in a single go, so it stopped in Shannon Ireland to refuel, where passengers deplaned, went through US Preclearance, and rebounded. IIRC, the US->UK return was non-stop. So one leg was longer than normal. Ultimately, it was dying on it's own when COVID drove the final nail into the coffin.
It was bad for IRROPs too. You'd have to schlep over to Heathrow in case of any issues. And you have to explain to your boss why you picked the weird oddball flight over the reliable Heathrow with tons of flights to New York
> Because everyone sleeps soundly with bright blue LED lighting blaring in their faces.
Apropos of anything else, and leaving aside intensity, almost all of the research into blue light and sleep points to it having nearly no effect. Maybe less surprising when one of the earlier corporate proponents of this was Luxottica who just saw another opportunity to make money.
Not covered: the inevitable even-smaller lavatory to further insult the dignity of the flying public.
At this point, the designers of narrow-body interiors should be actively shamed for how hostile they have made lavatory designs. In a world in which every major flying population is aging and more overweight, yet every generation of airplane lavatories is even narrower and less accessible for everyone.
Lavatories are seen as a waste of space because they cannot seat passengers in it. A regulation is required when the incentives are misaligned with the reality.
Indeed, regulation is the only way to protect passengers from market greed here, but the airplane makers play a critical role in what designs they make available to airlines. Airbus and Boeing both like to market their newer designs and interiors in terms of passenger comfort (lower cabin altitude, reduced noise, larger windows, etc) so clearly they (and their customers) understand that passenger comfort justifies spending somewhat more than the bare minimum. And given past designs (and designs still fitted in widebodies) they very much know how to build useful lavatories.
I suspect in time there will actually be safety consequences to the continued downsizing of airplane lavatories. There are already a number of serious incidents that have been caused by fluid leaks from galleys and lavatories (IIRC Quantas came pretty close to losing a 747-400 due to a kitchen leak leading to massive water intrusion into the main electrical/avionics bay - once you end up pouring large quantities of water on your avionics all bets are off about the systems failures that will happen and you are well beyond any backup/redundancy that has been designed in, and during the 60s and 70s the USAF experienced serious corrosion of flight control cables on C-130s due to urine "leakage"). Too-small lavatories basically guarantee that water and urine are going to end up in undesirable locations and at best they will cause expensive interior corrosion and at worst they will cause serious corrosion to the airframe or critical equipment.
What if we could seat a few people in there. They d just have to stand up while it s being used.
Introduce a larger one that you have to sign up for digitally to wait in line and be notified when it is available and charge for the privilege. Hell, make it auction based so if you want to jump the line you can if you pay for it.
I am laughing reading your "hellish capitalism" proposals. How about we add surge pricing? Or fully dynamic pricing, so you arrive at the bog and learn that it costs 30 quid to relieve yourself?
The first class seats look like a nightmare if you have kids.
Whenever I see kids traveling in first class, it grosses me out a little. When I was a kid, we didn't have the money to fly at all; it was just road trips for us, when we could manage it.
I really think parents putting their kids in first class does them a disservice. And on top of that, if they're at all disruptive, that's incredibly rude to other first class passengers who have paid quite a bit of money for a better experience.
I always think of the early scene in the movie Home Alone when Catherine O'Hara's character asks her husband if they should feel bad about the kids flying coach while they're in business, and he assures her that the kids are fine. That's the right way to do it!
(Before the inevitable "but!"s, yes, I know that won't work super well if you just have one kid traveling with you; it's understandable that you might not feel comfortable with them sitting alone. And of course they need to be of a certain age, or have old enough siblings, to be on their own in that situation. But that's not an excuse to bring your kids up to first or business class. You should be flying with them in economy if they can't sit there on their own.)
Other people spending their money to buy tickets for their children grosses you out? What sort of jealous person are you?
Just because you didn't have money to fly, now you don't want other kids to have that? Lol wat?
jfyi, I didn't have any money to fly either. Now flying business with kids. Hope to see you there someday :)
I genuinely cannot tell if this is rage-bait or not. Either way, hat tip. This kind of comment will really unleash the fury on HN.
What is so bad about having your child sit in front or in back of you? To the side might be a bit difficult as you need to reach across the aisle.
They're a nightmare if someone else has kids, too!
In what way? So many international first class seats are similar to this already. Either there is a massive barrier between seats or separated.
Qatar's 777s have a fairly good setup, where the middle business class rows can be turned into something of a pod, with separators removed in both axes so you can have four people in a 2x2 facing each other setup...
... for a cost.
Good. Children do not belong in first class.
Remember that airlines almost always opt for the more cramped and cheaper variants of interiors, asking "ok but how do we fit even more cattle in here?"
But also remember that airline customers also opt for the more cramped and cheaper variants.
I long ago swore to pay for economy plus. It isn't much more and the space is nice. Enough people do that they still offer the this service
But also remember they do that because their employer has opted to pay them as little as possible
How far do you want to take this? :)
The thing is, this is far from universal. People don't buy a substantially worse smartphone or car to save $5. But they'll accept a substantially worse product to save $5 on airline tickets.
Which two airlines have substantially different products for a $5 difference?
If you didn't mean literally $5 perhaps you can give us some real examples of cost differences?
Personally I find so little difference between airlines in economy these days. And Premium Economy is nowhere close to a '$5' difference long haul these days
They don't, because competition erases those differences. It's a very competitive market. If people were willing to pay a little extra for a few more inches of seat pitch in economy, you'd have an airline that offered a few more inches of seat pitch in economy with slightly higher fares.
They do? It's a common upsell for 50-100ish per flight leg.
Elsewhere people are saying it’s not a realistic alternative because it’s too expensive. I think people just want a better product without paying any more money. I hate cramped economy seats too, and I fly in them anyway, but I acknowledge that I’m deliberately choosing money over comfort and it’s my own doing.
Well, we could always try communism just one more time.
It's a shame everyone can't fly first class, but I guess this is just life? I've had the opportunity to take an international business class flight and couldn't believe how great I felt after the trip. Huge difference getting that extra legroom to actually lay flat and sleep.
Also, the business class staff are so nice, they make you feel like a million bucks.
To the back of the plane, all you poor people!
How about seats that are adjustable to fit small people. I'm sick of sitting in seats with concave lumbar regions. It tears up my back. I know, I know, the seats need to accommodate large, more spherical people. Cant there be an adjustable lumbar support though?
Any time you say "adjustable" the manufacturer and operator only here "heavier" which translates to "more expensive to operate."
The manufacturers are willing to put in whatever seats the operators want, and airlines want to have the lightest, most compact seats possible because that allows them to offer the lowest price, which is what passengers choose.
My wife's short so she's actually quite uncomfortable in a business class seat unless it's reclined-- seat bottom length is an issue for her, sometimes even in economy. On the flipside, I'm of pretty average height, but the flat seat cushions mean I always feel like I'm sitting awkwardly on my tailbone. I wonder why they couldn't just be more like a car seat, with some thigh support. I'm not sure I've ever been in a car seat less comfortable than the _best_ economy airline seat.
Truly, a first world problem, if I ever heard of one! What is wrong with her carrying a small collapsable foot stool? (You can find ultra-light plastic ones on Amazon for around 10 USD.) That seems like an easy fix for someone willing to pay thousands for a business class seat.
> I wonder why they couldn't just be more like a car seat, with some thigh support. I'm not sure I've ever been in a car seat less comfortable than the _best_ economy airline seat.
Car seats are a lot heavier than airplane seats.
and also not crash rated for the same loads and scenarios, nor burn rated to the same standards
Seats are airline equipment. They depend on the airline and it's suppliers and are optionally assembled by Airbus.
Whenever a pillow is included on a flight, I always stuff it behind my lower back. I can't remember the last time I actually used a pillow for its intended purpose when not flying in a lie-flat seat.
Fun fact: Airbus doesn't choose the seats, the airline does. Airbus only installs them.
Since we are voicing seat related complaints, I want seats that don't recline. I don't want that asshole in front of me ruining my flight again.
You could consider sitting in an exit row. The seats in front of that row are typically prohibited from reclining in order not to block the exit. Or you can sit behind a bulkhead.
Up to about 15 years ago, Sure. Now you're mostly out of luck unless you pay.
Sure, and if you want a better experience on a plane, you pay more. That seems reasonable.
I don't get the griping with the reclining. I see it all over reddit and here. Never in real life. It has never affected my life in the least bit to have someone in the seat ahead of me recline their seat. It doesn't affect knee room at all. You lose what maybe 3 inches of dead air space if that at the top of their seat.
>It doesn't affect knee room at all.
There are definitely airline seats where the reclining seats impact the knee room. I'm 6'2" but I seem to have more of it in the legs than typical, which really shows up in non-extended legroom airlines. I buy the upgrade whenever possible, but sometimes it's just not available.
In a regular (not extended) seat, I have two positions that work: my ankles crossed and tucked up close to my seat with knees spread, and nothing in the underseat in front of me and then putting my feet there, with my legs straightened (wedging my thighs into the edge of my seat). Even then, my knees are high enough that usually the person in front of me reclining will recline the seat back into my knees (best case) or those metal side rails into my knees. Especially enjoyable when the suddenly recline the seat.
Not everyones body geometry is the same. My son is around the same height as me, but when we sit in the car he's like half a head taller than me, he carries a lot of his height in his trunk where I carry it in my legs.
I'm 5'9", and rarely have a problem with the person in front of my reclining, but I can absolutely see how it could create comfort issues for taller people.
It is more difficult to use a laptop on a tray table if the person in front of you is reclining; you often end up having to angle the screen down to the point where it's not great. In that case I often have to ditch the tray table and put it on my lap, which is less comfortable, but at least lets me angle the screen how I prefer.
It's only dead space if you are not using it. I like to open my laptop and place it on the tray. When the person in front reclines, I am forced to sit still for the duration of the flight. I usually fly from Europe to Asia, so 10-12 hours.
I'd be baffled if that actually stops you from using a laptop. The seat hardly moves. And the tray slides forward a bit too.
Not baffling at all. When I'm in an economy seat with typical seat pitch, someone reclining in front of me makes it difficult to impossible to use a laptop on the tray table. The recline angle of the seat means you have to angle the screen downward in an uncomfortable way. I'll often end up putting the laptop directly on my lap in that situation, but that creates other comfort/ergonomic issues.
Well, you'd be baffled then. When the seat in front is reclined, I can't open the lid fully or even well enough. I've tried.
What if you also recline?
(Not the person you're asking, but...) I don't want to adversely affect the person behind me, but I also accept the right of the person in front of me to recline if they want to. It's not easy being me.
I honestly thought like, the protocol was seat up for take off/food/landing, reclining otherwise.
Yeah, I don't understand this - pretty much every long haul flight I've ever been on has been like this: meal service finishes, lights dim a bit, everyone reclines, lights go out, people either doze off or watch the IFE.
To be fair, I have actually once seen someone not recline, but they had four or five visits from cabin crew before the lights went off making sure they were okay, or if they wanted to be moved, or if there was a fault with their seat. Like, even the crew thought it was an unusual occurrence.
Yet every thread that touches on this on HN, there are people saying "I never recline, what about the person behind me?". And then they complain about being uncomfortable!
This only works if you are okay with developing neck issues
You're gonna get neck issues working off that tray table too my friend.
Fair :D
I don't get this attitude. The seats are meant to recline, as soon as takeoff is finished I recline. If you want more space, you should too.
If you are tall, then no amount of reclining is going to give you more space. The knees are too far forward to stretch your legs, _especially_ when the person in front of you reclines.
In other words, you are inconsiderate.
I'm unusually tall and flying has always been unpleasant no matter what. I can actually deal with the reclining because it's actually physically impossible for the person ahead of me to recline since my knees are in the way. What really gets me is the fact that the seat back only comes up to my neck and I can't sleep because my head just flops around. I've been meaning to find some security-friendly contraption that could extend the back a little bit to immobilize me a bit better.
I don't get this "inconsiderate" thing. The seats recline. They're designed to do so. They're allowed to do so. Airlines allow you to recline. Yes, if you're reclining during meal service, you're a dick. But any other time (outside takeoff and landing) is fair game.
If you're tall, pay for economy plus or premium economy. If that's not offered on your route, that sucks, but getting pissed that someone will use their allowed recline space isn't fair of you.
If you want to get mad, get mad at all passengers collectively for treating ticket cost as their only criterion when booking flights.
The back reclines. The bum and legs don't move. My knees usually only just fit. When someone reclines their seat usually presses on my knees. Those few cm matter.
Sometimes the seat design is such that my knees block the recline. If I'm unlucky it sucks.
Yeah, I'm six foot, always in the most basic economy, and never once has the person in front reclining impacted me.
It feels like the same phenomenon when people bitched and moaned about having to take even the slightest COVID precautions.
I am 6'7". I regularly have to ask the person in front not to recline on some layouts. I get aisle/exit row seats if possible, but sometimes it's just not possible. For euro city flights there is no premium economy and the business class seats don't have more legroom either, so there's often very few options for me.
For short flights I will just tuck my legs awkwardly when necessary and have to get up to stretch regularly.
There are people that are taller than six foot and it also depends heavily on whether you have long legs or a long torso.
Fly on Ryanair
Can still hear the person snoring opposite.
lol
Ah, look at all these things I will never be able to afford
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Maybe its due to the lessons learned, the extreme conservatism in air travel should be up to a disruption. It's nice that they make blue light to look like the sky but:
1) The windows are disappointing. This is, I think, due to the fatigue caused by large rectangular windows that previously caused a disaster but it begs for improvement. A way to make large windows or get rid of all the windows and use very high definition screens to imitate windows with live footage would be nicer
2) Noise is still a problem. I am sure they are trying hard, even the engines are designed around addressing the noise issue but it would be a huge improvement to have this solved. ANC maybe?
3) Automate the pilot out. This is I believe an area where plane makers are pioneers but we still got pilots, I would love to see flying with a plane becoming about the same as taking an elevator.
IMHO travel times are reasonable, the improvements in comfort, cost and practicality are due. Airports themselves too are due for an overhaul, it shouldn't be taking hours to get on a travel machine.
It only takes hours for administrative reasons. Pre-COVID, I used to show up at IAD 25 minutes before departure time when I knew security would be fast and I could get right to my gate.
Overall, facilities that handle millions of people tend to have a lot of "standing in line" and the slightest disruptions can mean you'll be standing in line for an extra hour.
> Automate the pilot out.
That's a complete non-starter for now and the next decades. Fully automated operation for 1-dimensional transport (trains) is a solved issue, for 2D, not so much and most certainly not for 3D.
Even though modern planes are very reliable, too many things can go wrong during flight to leave it to a machine - and for what? Just for bragging rights?
There are whole fleets of unmanned drones being flown by the military today
"unmanned" being the operative word.
Most of them still have remote operators.
good luck getting most people into a pilotless aircraft as well- there is at least an incentive for the pilots to stay alive