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3 Recent Flights Make Unscheduled Landings, After Disputes Over Knee Room
The AP reports that American airplane passengers, squeezed by increasingly tight seating aboard planes, are lashing out, actually getting into in-flight fights over knee room: Three U.S. flights have made unscheduled landings in the past eight days after passengers got into fights over the ability to recline their seats. Disputes over a tiny bit of personal space might seem petty, but for passengers whose knees are already banging into tray tables, every bit counts. ... Southwest and United both took away 1 inch from each row on certain jets to make room for six more seats. American is increasing the number of seats on its Boeing 737-800s from 150 to 160. Delta installed new, smaller toilets in its 737-900s, enabling it to squeeze in an extra four seats. And to make room for a first-class cabin with lie-flat beds on transcontinental flights, JetBlue cut the distance between coach seats by one inch.
The problem is twofold. I travel a huge amount for work, and I am required to select the cheapest available option (within a window). The only thing that saves me from spending 10+ hours a week in huge amounts of discomfort due to the amount of space is my frequent flier status.. Those extra 5" of legroom are luxury when you travel as much as I do.
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There are websites that specialize in giving you the seating configuration for a particular flight. One is SeatGuru While they can change aircraft between when you book a flight and when the flight takes off it is pretty accurate. If comfort is important to you then you should be rechecking the seat map several times before the day of your flight and adjust your seat based on any changes. Often better seats will open up several days before a flight as people are upgraded to 1st class. You have to spend a bit of time if you want the best seating you can get. 2nd exit row, aisle or window seat are two of the best seats in economy. Book early and snag those seats.
City's often have lower crime levels per person they just have more people.
They ran that ad because they realized that if they could get rid of one row of seats, they could drop one of their stewardess, and save money that way.
Since that time, the FAA changed the rules on the number of people per crew member, so they lost their incentive to drop the extra row.
You can get airline tickets in Europe for under $100. That's often equal to or less than a bus or a train, and yet European flights are generally a bit better than American flights despite the latter costing more for similar distances. You're oversimplifying the matter.
There isn't a "little bit better" choice on domestic flights, even international flights on the same continent.
Of course there is. Lots of airlines have a "little bit better choice" option.
Here's one - About $50 - $75 more on a flight to Canada -
http://www.united.com/CMS/en-U...
Why is it scummy for airlines to charge extra for better seating?
Having adequate leg room isn't a "premium feature", it's what should simply be standard. Being tall isn't even theoretically a choice like being overweight. Premium features are things like better food, better entertainment, better seats. There are plenty of tall people who don't actually fit in the economy seating. I have a good friend who is roughly 2 meters tall (~6'7") and he HAS to sit in an aisle seat or an exit row in coach because he simply cannot get his legs to fit behind a typical economy seat. Seems unfair to force him to pay more simply because he's taller than average. There is a difference between premium seating and seating that simply is adequate to fit a normal (if tall) human being. While you have to draw the line somewhere, airlines have gotten to the point where a statistically significant percent of the population has difficulty squeezing into the seats.
But as long as there are not so many problems as to damage their bottom line, they can just blame the incidents on the passengers
Maybe passengers can take the blame for fighting incidents. But probably not other problems that may arise... like medical issues.
It's long been known that flying in cramped conditions leads to a much higher risk of blood clots and deep vein thrombosis, particularly on longer flights.
The most common recommendation to avoid these problems is to move around more -- both actually getting up and walking around and doing various exercises to move your legs around while you are sitting. Making flights more cramped makes it more difficult to both -- when it's harder for people to maneuver in and out of a cramped seat, they are less likely to do it as often to walk around (particularly for older folks or those with more difficulty moving around, who are more at-risk for these problems). And if you are tall, these new seats may make doing any kind of leg motion in your seat nearly impossible for exercise.
This is not a minor issue. Average treatment costs for a year after a diagnosed case of DVT are $20,000-30,000, not to mention potentially life-threatening complications.
Right now the incidence is significant but still relatively low (maybe 1 in 4500 people who fly). It will be interesting to see if further restricting motion and cramming people in will increase these risks.
And if it does -- then the cost of cramming people into tighter seats is more than just the potential for some disagreements and fights. We may be talking about serious expensive medical problems, potentially resulting from airlines squeezing one more seat in here or there.
If you're speaking about european or asian flights then those have overcapacity due to massive government subsidies overbuilding the fleets, not from capitalism.
Who told you that bullshit? EU regulations forbid subsidizing transportation companies.
The reason for european economy flights being comfyer is that we have true competition in Europe, with several dozen companies, as opposed to the US where you have only 3! I choose y flight very carefully based on comfort as well as price!
Oh, and this EU law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
Sorry to bring it to you that way, but your uncontrolled predatory capitalism brought your country into this situation!
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango