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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.
and this is what happens. Survival 101: you do not violate my personal space. EVER.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
You silly person, that's not how customers think. They will choose the cheapest offer, and complain about the quality. Your only hope is to not offer such cheap options.
Yes, because customers aren't stupid. They smell a price hike from a mile away.
I travel frequently across the north sea, between Scandinavia and Iceland. This is a 3 hour flight I generally do in coach. A while ago i started thinking of the good old days, when the vikings travelled this distance as well. Lets compare
Option 1: Longboat
Duration: Several weeks
Onboard meal service: Dried fish, mead, old water
Comfort level: Cold, freezing, wet, damp, salty and sea sickness.
Entertainment: Rowing!
Restroom: "Overboard"
Risks: Likely to die from sickness, fall overboard, freeze to death or get beaten up by a fellow traveller (everyone is armed!)
On-time arrival: Not applicable
Option 2: 757-200 in Coach
Duration: 3 hours
Onboard meal service: Light snacks and drinks complimentary. Warm dishes for purchase
Comfort level: Leather seats, personal cooling available, good temperature.
Entertainment: Loads of videos
Restroom: Complimentary
Risks: Extremely unlikely to plummet into the ocean. Unlikely to get beaten up by a fellow traveller (noone is armed)
On-time arrival: 90%+. Sporadic 1 day delays due to Eyjafjallajökull
I thought of this for a moment, then sat down and enjoyed my private leather seat and in-flight entertainment in "coach".
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
Exactly. Well that and the details aren't spelled out by the airlines either . When you pick economy the seats may or may not be as advertised. The same airline and the same plane can have different configurations. Dimensions of space aren't listed anywhere when booking a seat.
Airlines are running into physical space issues. In their quest for ever more seats The airlines are beginning to ignore basic human needs. People need to move around. The tighter and more closed off you make people feel the more likely they are to get into arguments. This is not only true physically, but mentally as well. Arguments lead to fighting.
It is why Cities have always struggled. To many people to close to each other. The wealthy always purchase enough space to make themselves comfortable. However the poor can not and once you get so many people pressed together they fight. That fighting spills outward and you have a riot over a simple issue that is dealt normally dealt fairly.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I love how you put this into a "win/loss" context instead of finding a solution that everyone can live with. I especially like the part where you take great delight in causing pain to another human being. You're the problem here.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
When a dude tries slamming their sit into my knees I press back. I'm 240lb 6'3" and a muscular frame. I win more times than not and the jackass in front of me gets a sore back for their troubles.
That's the real problem. It's gone from both sides being reasonable to having to "win." Personally, I'd be happy if airlines made seats non-reclinable since the few degrees you get is pretty much useless; until that happens I think you'll see more incidents of air rage. I'm amazed at the number of assholes I see on flights who start arguments over really petty things. If someone can't check their ego and or anger for a few hours while on a plane they really should seek professional help and stop flying' it would make it a lot more pleasant for those of us who just want to get to our destination with no drama or unexpected contact with the ground.
The next area of dispute may well start to be armrests given the small width of seats and the increasing size of the flying public. Having someone take an inch or two of your seat is as bad as losing the knee room.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
That was an advertising photo. You don't think it bore any relationship to reality, do you? Look at airline ads these days. Full of happy, smiling passengers. When was the last time you saw anyone smiling on a plane?
United offers Economy Plus seating on their entire jet fleet. They continue to offer their most frequent fliers space available Economy Plus at no additional charge. As with most things in life, not everyone will choose to pay extra for something better.
The rich can lay sprawled out in their lay-flat beds while the plebs snarl at one another while standing ankle-deep in their own feces. We're back to the good old days of the Titanic.
Which would be an interesting observation if it wasn't pure nonsense. Flying anywhere, no matter how briefly uncomfortable, is a huge luxury. If you want to fly first class, put the money aside and do it. If you don't want to spend that much money, quit bitching at people who do. If you can buy any sort of airline ticket, you're the wealthy one by any measure that matters.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
1) At some point the cost of diverting flights will exceed the profits generated by cramming more seats into the planes and the problem will correct itself.
2) The airline will figure out a way to shift the cost of flight diversion onto the passengers and the problem will just get worse.
My money is on #2
And how, exactly, is she supposed to put her knees in any other position? The seats are not very wide. Unless she has an empty seat next to her (and, frankly, that's about the only way I can stand to fly any more), if she tries to bend her legs so that her knees aren't right in front of her, parts of them are going to be spilling over into and annoying the person next to her, or sticking out into the aisle and getting run over by the carts that the flight attendants drive trhough trying to get people to buy stupid duty free stuff.
The problem is not inconsiderate assholes. The problem is that 6'2" people are stuck in plane seats that they simply don't fit in. The problem is that airlines have designed coach seats to work for the bottom 30% of the population in terms of size, and are trying to squeeze the entire population into it. Something somewhere's gotta give. The person in back can blame the person in front for reclining their seat (as we've seen in this thread), or the person in front can blame the person in back for having knees (as we've seen in this thread), but *somebody* is going to be unhappy, because the situation is set up so that somebody has to be.
The problem is coach seating. It's just become too small.
You can't physically cram people any tighter, and fights are breaking out. Good. When they discover they're losing more on bad PR and flight diversions than they're gaining, they'll put back the inch or two - for a while. Now that they've reached bottom, the floor will just bounce from now on; the came couple of inches continually added and subtracted subtracted every 2-3 years, forever.
As far as blaming people for not buying an upgrade, has anyone saying this actually looked at prices? Last couple of times I flew, I looked into it; a little more room doesn't cost you 10% or 20%, it's more like double or triple the ticket price. Actually habitable travel accommodations are only for the wealthy.
Why is it scummy for airlines to charge extra for better seating? Isn't that what every concert and sporting event do? Even some movie theaters have premium seats for a premium price. Being tall has advantages and disadvantages, you might not fit well in a cheaper small car and have to pay more for a bigger car with more legroom. That doesn't make the auto makers scummy for charging more for a premium product.
We're using the it used to be worse arguments?
Okay. Once upon a time there used to be entire empires that used slaves.
You couldn't own anything, had no money, you were a slave.
You are no longer allowed to complain about who is in power, your taxes, your living conditions, your wages, cost of living,
traffic, or anything else you can think of.
Today people still starve and die from thirst / hunger. So if you have food and water, you no longer need any other rights as it's better than what it could be.
No? Maybe people have a right to complain about seating, and receive better options.
Your statement is only true until YOU lose your rag at some [redacted] idiot on a flight.
By all means sit there all smug but don't ever think that you will never have an argument over what you think is 'your space'.
At least one of these "knee jerk" incidents took place in a section of a plane where passengers did pay extra for extra leg room (United's Economy Plus section). The problem is that the more people pay for their ticket the more entitled they feel.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
The cruise lines also treat people like royalty, even more so than the Asian airlines. Also, the cruise lines are cheaper and include foo, lodging and entertainment. And the make money.
Somehow, airlines have managed to cut salaries by 2/3, raised prices by over 3 times, all but eliminated meals, charge for every extra, and with most other factors like fuel costs, being the same, have managed to lose money while doing it. It is an incredible phenomenon, and some enterprising PhD student could probably figure out how to prove 1=0 if they could apply the business model of airlines to mathematics.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Seriously, the number of people talking about how this isn't a problem, while simultaneously - gleefully - discussing what they'll do if someone tries to take their room, or someone won't let them take their room, pretty much dismisses any counter-argument to the idea that there isn't a problem.
There obviously is.
Wow, the AC beat me to it with an excellent reply. I'll just add that while I would never say that *you* are the *sole* justification airline execs use in making these awful decisions, you're definitely part of it. Keep saying it's the people's fault, and they'll keep squeezing until they find your particular threshold.
To be honest. I believe the new American way of customer service is to mess with your customers, until they pay for an upgraded service: Classic examples are: Airlines, ISPs, cellphone, finance ( dealerships), and so on. Some use the "luxury" tag to make feel the customers they can buy a place with wealthier folks.
So the trend is to f*ck with your customers to force them pay more.
Perhaps you don't like when airlines lose your luggage? Maybe you're travelling for a short time, and all you need is a small carry-on? I rarely retrieve anything from my carry-on, but I still bring it on the flight because I've had luggage lost too many times.
Look, I don't even blame these people that much. When someone reclines in front of you on a plane, it is HORRIBLE.
If you want to take a nap on a plane, then upgrade to premium economy or first class. Otherwise, keep your damn seat upright. I hate how reclining is still allowed on flights. Reclining your seat on plane is SO INCONSIDERATE to the person behind you. It jams the seat into their legs, it screws up their tray table angle, and it makes it IMPOSSIBLE for the person to get any work done in the plane. The only course of action you have is to ALSO recline your seat to try to re-gain some room, even if you didn't want to. Now you have not only screwed over the NEXT person behind you but you also might be hurting your back because you need to sit upright. Awesome.
Honestly I don't know why airlines still have reclining seats in coach nowadays. If they would just eliminate the ability then fights like this would not occur.
Airlines are running into physical space issues. In their quest for ever more seats
It's not the airlines quest for more seats, it's the passengers' quest for even cheaper fares.
If airline A has 34 inches of pitch with a $550 ticket and airline B has 30 inches for $500, the passengers will flock to the $500 ticket.
Passengers need to start making it clear with their wallet that they are no longer going to fly lower-priced sardine airlines.
If airlines were required to advertise seat pitch and width, then consumers could make that choice, but when even consumers that care about it have trouble finding out exactly which aircraft serves a route for their date of travel and what the seat configuration is, it's hard to blame consumers for not taking it into account.
Hoo boy. Do you have any idea how much more expensive flying was in the 1970s, before deregulation?
In 2011, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (who worked with Senator Kennedy on airline deregulation in the 1970s) wrote:
"In 1974 the cheapest round-trip New York-Los Angeles flight (in inflation-adjusted dollars) that regulators would allow: $1,442. Today one can fly that same route for $268."
Of course that factoid cherry picked the 1974 fare to coincide with the Arab oil embargo. But current oil prices are actually higher in inflation-adjusted dollars, and a cheap ticket between LA and NY is still around $350.
Of course that's exactly what happened. Because back when the LGA-LAX ticket cost $1442, very few people flew. The fundamentals of weight on an airplane and fuel use means the more people you can squeeze on a plane, the cheaper it is (per seat) to operate. So when federal regulation fixed the lowest airline price at $1442 making it inaccessible to the vast majority of people, the planes were emptier and the airlines could get away with fewer seats.
Air travel is in the state it's currently in because passengers prioritized lower fares over seating space, and the airlines found a way to deliver upon passenger desires. If passengers had demanded lush, business-class seating as you suggest, then that's what airlines would have delivered. Most of the seats on airplanes would be business-class sized, and a LGA-LAX ticket would still be around $1442 (actually, probably higher since current real oil prices are higher than in 1974).
i.e. It's not that current seating is "inhumane", it's that your definition of "humane" differs from what the vast majority of people buying airline tickets consider to be acceptable. Many airlines have premium economy seats offering an extra 5-6 inches of legroom at a higher price. A few people are willing to pay for those, but not many. If more people were wiling to pay for those bigger seats, the airlines would put more of them in - unless you're a monopoly, you always make more money giving people what they want.
The fundamental problem with air travel is that it's too fast. People look at that tiny seat and figure they can deal with it for a few hours. If air travel were slower and you were stuck in that seat for a day or two, people would demand more room.
Because, you complete fucking genius, not everyone is 5' 2'' tall and of medium build. Why, if you are 6' tall, are you penalised with having to buy a more expensive ticket?
Because physics? Limited volume of space, all costs and profits must come from cargo (that's us) carried within that space. If some require significantly more room then logically it costs more to carry them and therefore it isn't completely unreasonable to charge them more. It's the same logic that's been applied to overweight people and which says larger hotel rooms cost more.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Trouble is, it socially unacceptable to recline your seat on the airline unless the person behind you is reclining. And when you do recline, you should so slowly, preferably checking if there is a laptop in use before you do. The vast majority of people recognize this, respect it and don't recline except on night flights. The people who don't recognize it, tend to get very belligerent about their "right to recline" and airlines defuse this usually by siding with them.
What's starting to happen is that the silent majority is realizing that if they don't resist, the airlines are going to keep siding with the more belligerent "reclining is my right" crowd.
Kind of telling that you summarized this issue as a "knee jerk" incident. Tall passengers are people too.
They'll just come up with some idiotic pseudo-unit (SBW seems to be quite fitting), and every airline will define it differently just to ensure you can't compare them at all.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When you have to use a third-party service to find a basic description of the product you are buying, the market has failed.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Competition in Europe isn't just between airlines. Serious passenger rail service in the US would do a world of good.