Yogsosoth’s solution was to essentially get rid of economy in favor of economy plus, thereby limiting the consumer’s option. Currently, the majority of consumer’s are choosing economy to save money. So, the solution to get rid of the option that the vast majority of people want in favor of the solution that only a small population wants thereby raising the prices on everyone to satisfy that small population and also subsidize that small population seems unfair. Particularly because that small population currently has the option to have more comfort on the vast majority of flights, they just don’t want to pay for it themselves.
When someone leans all the way back into my lap, I rest the book I’m reading on the top of their head
That’s what really has me surprised. We’ll bash profit-motive companies all day long and how they treat their workers, etc… We’ll go on and on about the minutiae of exactly what to call a trans person or some other relatively tiny and weird demographic, and we’ll be really sympathetic to a whole bunch of fucked-up mental illnesses and problems like that.
Yet, here we are discounting and bitching about people who are just taller than average being pained by money grubbing airline policies, and the general opinion is that they should suck it up? How odd.
Personally, I think that if someone actually found a person with the same height, weight and dimensions as the “average” person that the airlines design the seats for and paraded this person around next to a bunch of other people, we’d see just how tiny these people really are.
Nothing odd about it. It’s easy to castigate someone for using the wrong word to refer to a transexual person on the internet. Actually sitting more-or-less upright represents minor inconvenience to that person though so the entitlement shields come out.
I’m not saying that all seats should be stretch seating. But from the demand that I see, and how hard it is to get, I would like to see more. I will gladly pay for a few more inches.
Yes first class is an option on SOME flights, at least on the routes I fly out of Denver. Certainly not the majority of them. My Wife and I are DINK’s. And definitely upper middle class. But even for us, the cost of first class is completely ridiculous.
Just did a random flight. Denver > Chicago round trip for December this year.
Economy - $194
Premium Economy (stretch?) Not available.
First Class $2236. Bwaaaaahaaaaaaha.
“Just upgrade” Uh huh.
Yeah, and I just booked a trip to the Caribbean for later this year. Exit row seats on each leg of my flights were an additional $35.
I don’t consider a basic standard of comfort a subsidy any more than I consider a regulation on food safety to be a subsidy. People should not be allowed to buy tainted beef at the supermarket just because they have an iron stomach or are just planning on feed the meat to pigs. The problem with more economy plus seating is that the standards of air travel right now do not make it easy or intuitive to buy seats based on size and room. You buy a ticket from one place to another and you usually decide on airline, price, any connections, and window/middle/aisle seat. I don’t know offhand what 31 vs. 35 inches mean, they both sound small. Is that width only? Does “legroom” mean the area from the front of the seat to the back of the seat in front of you? How does that work when it comes to putting your legs under the seat in front of you? Just like I shouldn’t be expected to know what pH balance is safe on a bottle of soda, I shouldn’t be expected to get into the technical details of what legroom means. Mandate a comfortable minimum for everyone, that’s the fairest option
Its not different from the current system, that’s why its absurd. And she’s wrong because she insists on her preference being the correct one. In reality, her only argument should be “The current system is suitable for my preferences and I not wish it to change”. I’m arguing safety and health, she’s arguing opinion, that’s why she’s trying to change the subject
Smaller population, but not small. The ones who mentioned they are 6’2 or 6’6 are above average but I’m sure there are still millions of them. Again, I’m talking safety and health, not simply a preference. You probably wouldn’t like it if there was an option to buy spoiled meat at the market next to fresh meat. Eliminating the choice of spoiled me affects some people I’m sure, but as a society we should strive to have a basic minimum of safety/comfort on planes just as we need a basic safety level of food we buy or the cars we drive. There’s no good reason to have super cheap seats that are uncomfortable and health hazardous for even slightly above average people even if some smaller people are fine with that
That’s great, when you can get it.
$35 additional is reasonable. I’ll gladly pay that. Give me 20% more room, I’ll pay 20% more.
Just need more seats like that.
My preferences is the correct one, because it is what the vast majority of people prefer. Nothing is stopping airlines from offering larger seats, except for the actual real life reality that people don’t want to pay for larger seats. Heck, even you don’t want to pay for larger seats, hence your scheme to make everyone else pay for your extra space. People buy seats on price, almost always.
I tried to look up documented knee injuries from airplane seats, and could not find any reliably documented (ie not someone complaining in a message board)- which isn’t surprising, as airplane seats are outright luxurious compared to other forms of travel that billions of people undertake daily without long term harm. Discomfort is not the same thing as a health hazard, and uncomfortable things are not illegal. Itchy sweaters, habaneros, standing tickets at concerts and marathons are all perfectly fine to sell to those that want them.
According to the Google, about 3% of the American population is taller than 6’ 2". I’m not saying that everyone shorter than 6’ 2" is fully comfortable in an airline seat, but I think it is safe to say that the good majority of passengers aren’t claiming that the seats are a serious threat to the health and safety of their knees like you are. So let’s say 15% of passengers are significantly inconvenienced by the seat pitch.
Should 100% of passengers pay more to make sure that 15% of passengers have a level of comfort that they do not now enjoy? I don’t know of any business that actually aims to fully satisfy 100% of its customers, by making 85% of them pay significantly more. Somewhere there has to be a balance between making most people happy and keeping fares relatively low, and installing 100% economy plus seats on all flights and making air travel significantly more expensive.
Personally, I’d be happy if the average seat pitch went up by an inch, or inch and a half. My very rough, back-of-the-envelope math tells me that this would probably add about 8% in cost to every economy ticket sold. That’s a fairly significant cost. If you want economy plus seating for all seats, it’s probably about double that (and let’s keep in mind that economy plus seating was not sufficient for the jerk with the Knee Defender in the story that started this thread). That’s starting to be a very significant cost, and I would guess that it would have a noticeable impact on how many people choose to fly.
Frankly, I’m more concerned that the next frontier of cost saving is making seats narrower. United has already put 10 seats in the width of a 777 that used to have 9 seats. Sure, that makes flights a wee bit cheaper, but I think we can all agree that current seat width doesn’t leave much for even an average person to be comfortable about.
ETA: And one more thing: seriously, as just a piece of advice offered in the spirit of helpfulness, you need to start looking at seatguru.com. Seriously. There is good advice on there: plug in your flight number and it will give you some helpful feedback on which seats may have a little extra advantage.
I was looking for specific numbers on what size person the airplane seats are designed for. I found this interesting article from 2009 on Popular Science, which includes him talking to Klaus Brauer, who is in charge of Boeing’s airline interior design. This bit is especially relevant:
Also interesting, the seats could be worse. When it was mandated that they needed to handle 16g’s instead of just 9g, they were made stronger and more bulky, cutting into knee and shin space, but then they were improved to be less bulky.
Also, the airlines appear to not provide more room because people aren’t willing to pay for it:
It would be nice if there was more room on planes, but it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.
I’d say you’re fine in your position. You are sitting in your seat with your legs in front of you, nothing is wrong with that.
But it might make things easier on you and/or less awkward if you say something to the person in front of you and ask that they not lean back. When they try to recline and can’t, they might push back harder. And they might not realize that you have your legs positioned there because it’s most comfortable, they might think you are just being a jerk and not letting them lean back because of that, and start acting passive aggressive towards you. While instead if you ask, you might not be their favorite person, but hopefully they’d respect your wishes. Of course your experiences may differ from my speculation.
“Most carriers fix their seats somewhere between a 31- and 34-inch pitch”
What the heck does this ^ mean. Inch pitch?
It’s just the distance between the seats. From the article:
I’m not sure exactly what the number would then be when people lean back. If there is 31" from the back of one seat to the front of the next seat, I don’t know how much that leaves once the front seat is reclined.
Be careful of using popularity to justify your own preference for the mob is fickle and prone to turning
I would pay for larger seats but like the previous post mentioned, there’s a huge difference between Economy and First Class. I can afford Economy or Economy Plus, but not $2000 for a First Class ticket. Your choices are already limited. Just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean you’re not being denied
How safe do you need your food to be? Will you be ok if 15% are expired and they don’t tell you which ones?
Here’s my attempt. Random flight from LAX to Honolulu, starting on a random date (I picked Sep 23 - Sep 27). Here’s the page it gave me: Page
Other than a tiny little blurb about leg room on the side of each flight, it gives me no additional information. What’s average? If I didn’t read this topic, I would have no idea that apparently US airlines consider 31-35 inches to be the norm. Is that width? Space from the front of the seat to the back of the seat in front? I click on Details and it goes into slightly more detail, but it mentions seat pitch. I don’t know what that is, even if I did read Sam Lowry’s post right above mine. And his explanation is confusion, “one mounting bolt to the same point”? What’s a mounting bolt?
And even if I did know about that, I clicked on the first 5 options on that page. I noticed that every single ticket was for a 31 inch seat pitch. There’s literally nowhere I can go if I’m looking for something bigger. Where are my choices that I’m being promised?
Now this is not to say that some enterprising entrepreneur can’t make a better website. Ideally, I’d like to be able to book flights like I can search for Amazon or ebay item: type in a general description, then click on boxes to see what’s available. Its good that the site shows me results based on price and departure/return dates, but in the context of this debate, I’d like a slider for seat size too. And perhaps a seat chooser like stadiums use so you can click on a seat anywhere on the plane and buy that specific spot. Airline booking seems deliberately obtuse if you have specific wishlists. For me its a mere inconvenience, but for someone else it could be hours of pain.
To put it in an engineering context…
The seats are designed, built, and tested to withstand a 12g-16g crash event. They are designed to be the strongest piece of the cabin, when all of the wings, walls, wheels, stowbins, and floors have torn themselves away, the seats shall remain intact and shall not be on fire. Without BS, they are literally stronger than the wings are. They go through a crazy unbelievable amount of testing that makes automotive crash test dummies shy away in fear. This becomes very complex when you also have to make them reclinable, electrified, & accessorized with outlets, tray tables, life vests, etc.
Does the guy hawking a $20 wedge on a late-night infomercial telling you to wedge it into the seat assembly to restrict it from functioning really have your safety interests at heart? Want to know how much “testing” these infomercial products go through? Want to know how much the passenger behind you has thought about any of this? crickets
In what situation would you be safer with a seat reclined?
Are you comparing the huge numbers of deaths worldwide due to food borne illness to the vast numbers of people killed annually by having the back of a chair touch their knees? If not, I’m not sure what the question means.
Sorry, the page comes up as blank for me.
Did Admiral Stockdale just attempt to book a flight? “Who am I? Why am I here? What’s an airplane? When is the internet? Why is pitch? Quod erat demonstratum?”
If you asked me how pitch is measured, I’d probably tell you that it’s done in the exact same way as horsepower, joules, curies, and gigahertz: with really small calipers (as far as I know). But I do know that higher numbers are good, so I think that’s enough knowledge to be useful. But how I book my flights is I go to Kayak, book the flight I want, put the flight numbers into seatguru, and choose the best seat I can. Sometimes that means extra legroom, sometimes it means it has a power outlet, sometimes it just means avoiding some little electrical box that would interfere with my feet.
Sorry I couldn’t find you a website that solves all your headaches, but I find it a very useful tool that has greatly informed my decision making. I honestly had no idea that someone could get so confused and frustrated by it.
I tend to think they’re reducing the leg room mainly because the passengers are either not knowledgeable about it or they don’t have any input in the design & engineering of the aircrafts. The manufacturers are complying with the airlines’ wishes; the airlines are doing everything they can to squeeze more pennies out of every flight. That’s just the basic business of optimizing profits. If that means offering five completely-full 110-seat flights between LAX and PHX rather than six mostly-full 100-seat flights and a 3/4ths-full red-eye, then they’ll cram a few more people into existing space in order to save money on the fuel, crew salaries & benefits, maintenance/replacement of aircraft, etcetera. Call me cynical, but while a tiny amount of that goes ‘back’ to the consumer in the form of lower ticket prices (i.e. prices we won’t balk at), I think the real goal is to maximize the dividends for the shareholders [because the game of businesses changed in the 1990’s from serve the customers to please the stockholders.]
Again, if lawsuits and bad reputations keep piling up over this issue, the stock values will go down and people will be staying home more often (or finding alternate means*).
Maybe it’s an FAA or NTSA matter? They claim to be in the business of “making sure transportation is as safe and effective as possible” or some such. Hasn’t anyone done any engineering studies to determine minimal or optimal space requirements for 98% of the traveling population? We’re not talking pro athletes, here, just your small, regular, and tall (but not extra tall) passengers.
I think the seats should be redesigned with the pivot where the tray hinges, and a sliding track under the seat (like a car’s bucket seats) so that, if you want to angle the seat-back more horizontally, you’ll be pushing a button and sliding your seat forward, reducing your own leg-room. The tray/table would normally sit ‘inside’ the magazine/instruction/airbag pouch, thereby protecting the back of the person in front of you when you’re boarding and settling into your seat. Then it would slide up until the bottom reached the pivot-point and the top would come toward you. You’d put your stuff on the face that was farthest from you. GargoyleWB, can you draw this up for me?
“Amen, Brother!” sounds like I favor the idea, though I really just agree with the statement.
–G!
*This is a key argument in favor of the supertrains: Make an alternative to flying in a sardine-can. IF the thing becomes a reality, I bet the LA-to-Frisco planes will ‘acquire’ more legroom in order to compete.
[The Amtrak train, by the way, was luxuriously spacious, but the available routes are ridiculously cost- and time- prohibitive.]
I understand all that perfectly. Certification requirements are oppressive and the costs are immense. I work in an industry like that too plus I am a life-long aviation enthusiast that gets the trade magazines for no particular reason.
The only thing that could be done on a short time scale is a policy change by individual airlines but they can do that at will if they choose if I am not mistaken - ‘No leaning back if you will hurt someone.’. Flight crews basically have at least as much authority as police officers in saying what goes on flights based on existing laws.
However, I am not convinced that the existing seat configuration is the best possible one (I am fairly certain that it isn’t even for the airlines). Airliners are basically huge tubes that you can do anything with. Once you strip the seats and overhead bins out of one and start from scratch, you can load an impressive amount of things with the free space arranged in a non-linear way. I am not the best designer in the world but I am convinced they are out there to help.
The first thing that needs to go is the overhead bins. Those are just dumb and cause many different problems. You should design seats that supply their own storage space underneath each one because most of it goes unused today. Once you have that space free, look at the cabin as a true 3-dimensional space and arrange the seats from there. It doesn’t need to be in a simple straight row configuration. Use the new cabin height to your advantage and have people sit at slightly different levels. You could even make the middle seat attractive if they were slightly elevated. That would free up a few precious inches.
Engineers and designers can do much better than anything they are trying today outside of 1st class.
Boeing already has a sort of solution which I suspect is going to become an industry standard.
Basically, the seatback will recline slightly (if at all), but the seat cushion will slide forward.
This means when you “recline” you are moving closer to the seat in front of you, sacrificing your legroom and maintaining the space behind you. Thus your purchase of your seat and the space in front of it does not impact the people behind you.
If you have difficulty visualizing this, sit upright in your chair. Now scrunch down in it, sliding forward with your thighs while not tipping your chair back.
Or just go look at these pics. 
In this particular version, the seatback does recline a few inches, however in other versions I have seen, the backframe of the seat does not recline, and instead the seatback cushion moves down as the seat cushion moves forward, only the headrest reclines slightly and this does not impact the space of the person behind in any significant way (maybe an inch to an inch and a half).
http://www.optimares.com/quadra3.php
You can see CGI of it in action here, and I really do think it’s the way forward, especially for long haul economy. There’s quite a bit of cleverness in the design of the seat, the In Flight Entertainment (IFE) system and the tray table, which when folded down allows a second smaller tray with a cupholder to be folded up, thus keeping cups up and out of the way and thus less likely to be spilled/knocked over. It also provides a charging shelf and powered usb port for recharging or feeding that seats IFE system.
http://www.optimares.com//multimedia.php?id=4
Regards,
-Bouncer-