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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.