3 Recent Flights Make Unscheduled Landings, After Disputes Over Knee Room

Anthropometrics by DanielRavenNest · 2014-09-07 00:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

Since they have apparently reached the limit of human tolerance, one answer is to offer wider seat spacing for a little extra price on some flights. The remaining "dense pack" passengers then have no reason to complain: "If you needed more space, why didn't you choose our XL flight?"

Re:Anthropometrics by Bengie · 2014-09-07 00:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
Re:Anthropometrics by gatkinso · 2014-09-07 00:43 · Score: 2

http://www.united.com/web/en-U...
Now. Ask about ticket price.

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I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Re:Anthropometrics by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 00:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes, because customers aren't stupid. They smell a price hike from a mile away.
Re:Anthropometrics by anarcobra · 2014-09-07 00:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

KLM has this. I almost always pay for the extra leg room. It gets more and more expensive every time I fly though but on a 9 hour flight it makes a big difference for me.
Re:Anthropometrics by peragrin · 2014-09-07 00:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Re:Anthropometrics by naughtynaughty · 2014-09-07 01:07 · Score: 2

Many airlines, including United, already offer more legroom in certain seats as well as some seats where the seat in front of you doesn't recline. Wider seats aren't the problem in this story but you are always welcome to pay for First/Business class if you want more width to your seat
Re: Anthropometrics by naughtynaughty · 2014-09-07 01:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
Re:Anthropometrics by TheCarp · 2014-09-07 01:21 · Score: 2

> 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.
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
So really, the best solution for passengers is to not hold back and start swinging until it really stands out that only one airline is having these problems.

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"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Re:Anthropometrics by epiphani · 2014-09-07 01:29 · Score: 4, Informative

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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Re:Anthropometrics by naughtynaughty · 2014-09-07 01:43 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
Re: Anthropometrics by tompaulco · 2014-09-07 01:43 · Score: 2

You can't stretch your legs on an airplane unless you are maybe under 5'6". I am unable to move my legs at all when I am in the seat, and getting up is not really an option on the regional jets, which is what I seem to end up flying on most of the time.

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If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Re:Anthropometrics by beelsebob · 2014-09-07 01:46 · Score: 2

No, ultimately, their job is to carry passengers. That means they need to offer enough space for a passenger to sit in. The airline's only choice is to not shrink the seats any more. This may of course mean price increases for all seats.
Re:Anthropometrics by Type44Q · 2014-09-07 01:51 · Score: 4, Funny

However the poor can not and once you get so many people pressed together they fight.

The solution is simple: load them up with tranquilizers/sedatives and stack 'em in like cordwood. ;)
Re: Anthropometrics by dukeblue219 · 2014-09-07 01:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's not even that expensive... there's usually plenty of Economy Plus available ranging from $50-$80 on a cross-country flight, down to $30 on a two hour flight (not exact, just my recollection). Life's too short to worry about $50 and get stuck with your knees jammed into an economy seat for 5 hours -- just pay it if you can. Honestly, if you can't afford the $50, then you probably don't fly long distances very regularly anyway.
Also, for business travelers who don't have elite status, you'd be surprised how many companies out there are willing to pay for extra legroom if you just ask.

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-Ted http://www.freemathhelp.com/
Re:Anthropometrics by mrsquid0 · 2014-09-07 01:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Re:Anthropometrics by i.r.id10t · 2014-09-07 02:23 · Score: 2

Especially with "failure to obey flight crew" charges as a threat
Maybe if the airlines want to cram so many folks into the space, they should look at preventing the seats from reclining at all. Even with plenty of room (ie, my 3 year old is in hte seat) a reclining seat will do its best to kill a laptop screen. Fortunately, I caught it quick enough to move the laptop, wait for it to be reclined, and reposition laptop so said 3 year old could keep watching Peppa Pig.

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Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Re:Anthropometrics by CohibaVancouver · 2014-09-07 02:36 · Score: 2

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.
Re:Anthropometrics by DexterIsADog · 2014-09-07 02:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Re:Anthropometrics by CohibaVancouver · 2014-09-07 02:52 · Score: 3, Interesting

one answer is to offer wider seat spacing for a little extra price on some flights
At check-in, United Airlines offers economy seats with much better legroom for a modest upcharge. On a transcontinental flight it's usually around $60 - $70.

I travel a lot for business (60 segments so far this year), often in Economy Plus, and there are usually many seats in E+ available, even when sardine class is completely packed.

People simply refuse to shell out the coin for additional comfort. I think if E+ *were* full you'd see United expanded it until eventually their entire aircraft had room leg room at a higher price.
Re:Anthropometrics by Gibgezr · 2014-09-07 03:02 · Score: 2

"Stand on Zanzibar", anyone?
Much like "The Sheep Look Up", it's one of John Brunner's novels that has stayed fresh and relevant. The guy wrote a lot of "throw-away", thin novels, but his great stuff was prescient and stylish in a way that has not tarnished with time.
Re:Anthropometrics by rnswebx · 2014-09-07 03:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Re:Anthropometrics by knightghost · 2014-09-07 03:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

Most seats no longer have enough room to open a laptop.
As a frequent flier and 6 ft tall, I can attest that airline seats have gotten to the point of cause widespread pain and suffering, including physical injury. There is not nearly enough competition in the airline industry to lead to improvements driven from capitalism. This is unfortunately the time where government needs to step in for the general well being of society.
Re:Anthropometrics by mpe · 2014-09-07 03:36 · Score: 2

That's great, and I use these sites all the time. BUT, the majority of flyers are casual leisure passengers. They are unlikely to figure out which of the dozen 757 configurations Delta offers they are flying on.

Unless the airline starts putting aircraft registration numbers on the bookings you'd need to also check out something like FlightAware to see which planes usually fly the routes in question.
IIRC the most obvious example of an airline with a large fleet of identical aircraft has non reclining seats anyway.
Re:Anthropometrics by hawguy · 2014-09-07 03:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
Re:Anthropometrics by timothy · 2014-09-07 03:47 · Score: 2

"I travel a huge amount for work, and I am required to select the cheapest available option (within a window)."
OK -- that might be the cheapest available option, but not every plane has windows of the right kind, and besides that's no fun for the guy in the actual window *seat.*
This sounds like a case for OSHA indeed.

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Re:Anthropometrics by atriusofbricia · 2014-09-07 04:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Re:Anthropometrics by AthanasiusKircher · 2014-09-07 04:48 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
Re:Anthropometrics by hawguy · 2014-09-07 04:53 · Score: 2

Lol they'll post the spacing in metric and people in the US will be totally lost. 145mm of room, wow thats a lot!!!
I know you're just trying to make a stupid american joke but as long as all airlines use the same units, the actual units don't matter when making comparisons. Whether it's mm, milli-yards or SBW(standard butt width), consumers can easily pick the larger number if that's important to them.
Re:Anthropometrics by jbssm · 2014-09-07 04:58 · Score: 2

Or to just do the obvious and install seats that don't recline like you already have in many low costs European carriers.
Re:Anthropometrics by TarPitt · 2014-09-07 05:22 · Score: 2

And post ticket prices in currency units per available seating space. They do this at supermarkets, post prices per standardized weight to permit comparison shopping, why not airlines?

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If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
Re:Anthropometrics by Grishnakh · 2014-09-07 05:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

Depends on the city. Some cities are very safe, others are not. Manhattan is very safe generally, other parts of NYC (like the Bronx) are less so. St. Louis, Oakland, and Detroit are the most dangerous cities, while Plano, Virginia Beach, and Henderson have very low violent crime rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There's a lot of interesting info in that link. For instance, WTF is going on in Colorado Springs? It's one of the safest cities for murder, however it's one of the most dangerous cities for rape. Same goes for Anchorage, though maybe that has something to do with Alaska's highly skewed male/female ratio. Lincoln NE is also the same.
Anyway, aside from some oddities like that, if you look through the rankings for various crime categories, you'll generally see the same cities topping the charts for crime: St. Louis, Oakland, Detroit, Memphis, Cleveland, Toledo, Newark NJ, Atlanta, etc. The common factor in all these is poverty: these cities have terrible economies, their industries left decades ago, they're just burned-out shells really and all the people who could afford to leave have left. Some of them do have some industry still left (Atlanta is home to CNN, Newark has some financial industry that spilled over from Manhattan and Jersey City in search of cheaper real estate), but not nearly enough to keep the economy in good shape. The cities that are the safest are either bedroom communities (like Henderson NV) for nearby larger cities (Las Vegas in that case) (Jersey City is like this too, a lot of Manhattanites have moved there in search of cheaper rent), tourist destinations (VA Beach), or have strong economies due to strong industries (San Jose, Portland, Seattle, with tech industry). However, many of the safest cities are smaller cities with less than 500k people, like Plano, Lexington KY, Fort Wayne IN, Lincoln NE, and Mobile AL, which would lend support to the idea that higher density creates more crime.
Re:Anthropometrics by drmerope · 2014-09-07 06:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.
Re:Anthropometrics by Opportunist · 2014-09-07 07:31 · Score: 3, Funny

When you look at how slave ships were packed, and if you compare that to passenger planes today, the main difference is that on slave ships the slaves were required to do some exercise on deck every day to keep them healthy so they would fetch a price.
Sadly, it doesn't matter what condition you arrive in...

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Anthropometrics by Opportunist · 2014-09-07 07:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Anthropometrics by pspahn · 2014-09-07 09:27 · Score: 4, Funny

Calling the Springs a "tech hub" is like calling Ft. Collins an "educational powerhouse".
There's some tech there, but I wouldn't consider it a hub by any means.
The reason for the high rape listing is simple. As someone pointed out, it is not only where the Air Force Academy is, but there is also Fort Carson, Peterson AFB, and Schriever AFB. You pair this with changes in FBI reporting and it's not surprise the Springs has that many incidents.

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Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Re:Anthropometrics by NoKaOi · 2014-09-07 10:13 · Score: 2

At check-in, United Airlines offers economy seats with much better legroom for a modest upcharge. On a transcontinental flight it's usually around $60 - $70.
But that's per flight, right? So a round trip itinerary with only 1 stop would be $60 x 4 = $240? That's not so modest for many people. Even if it were $60-$70 each way and not each flight, $120 - $140 round trip is not trivial.
Re:Anthropometrics by im_thatoneguy · 2014-09-07 10:46 · Score: 2

I'm 5'11" and there is plenty of room in Economy plus. If you're a frequent flyer you can get Economy Plus for free when you book a ticket on United, I assume Delta is the same for their frequent flyers.
Over the last 5 years United Airlines has had an average profit of 0.2% Delta : 7.3%. Southwest: 3.2% American: -5.3% (loss). JetBlue 2.9%. Those are very low profit margins. I'm one of the first people to call for government intervention when warranted but the airlines don't need to be bailed out or subsidized just because people aren't willing to pay the cost of an airline's seat. If people want lots of leg room or they're slightly taller they can pay for the extra space they want. If they want a super cheap, basement discount seat in exchange for a little less comfort then I don't see a problem with that either. Should we outlaw small cars too because they don't have large trunks?
Either one of two statements is true:
1) Access to air travel is essential to people of all economic means.
2) Air travel is a luxury.
If #1 is true then we shouldn't be forcing airlines to increase their prices. We shouldn't force airlines to increase their seat spacing since it would price many people out an already expensive product.
If #2 is true then we shouldn't do force airlines to increase their seat spacing because it's simply a luxury good and if people want a slightly nicer luxury they can pay for additional expense if it's truly valuable to them. And if someone really wants to know exactly what kind of seat they're in for when booking... they can enter it into SeatGuru and check.
Re: Anthropometrics by gnoshi · 2014-09-07 11:24 · Score: 2

I'm looking forward to the next change when speakers start piping in the wailing of the dying into the economy section, and if you don't want to listen to the wailing then you should be paying for the 'economy plus', which has mysteriously increased to include half the seats from the old 'economy' section. Maybe just remove the cushions and have 'economy' sitting on planks of wood, with a full inch of open-cell foam in the 'economy plus' section and perhaps an extra $5 for each additional inch of foam.
Re:Anthropometrics by c6gunner · 2014-09-07 11:52 · Score: 4, Interesting

The solution is simple: load them up with tranquilizers/sedatives and stack 'em in like cordwood. ;)
I know you're joking, but I would absolutely LOVE that. We just don't have the technology for it yet ... but if we ever perfect safe and cheap suspended animation, this would be the perfect solution for everyone. Airlines can cram 4 times as many people on a single flight, airfare costs half as much, and your journey subjectively lasts a fraction of a second. It's a win-win proposition.
Re:Anthropometrics by j35ter · 2014-09-07 11:52 · Score: 5, Informative

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!

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Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
Re:Anthropometrics by j35ter · 2014-09-07 12:02 · Score: 2

Dude, if I wanted to have to wear special gear to survive a fight, I could've stayed in the Air Force...
What gear, your government issued dishwasher gloves?

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Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
Re:Anthropometrics by khellendros1984 · 2014-09-07 12:06 · Score: 2

I've had 4 such flights this year, 2 of which were 11 hours long. I don't see enough benefit in reclining my seat 15 degrees to inconvenience the person behind me.

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It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Re:Anthropometrics by FatLittleMonkey · 2014-09-07 12:45 · Score: 2

You can know what plane you'll be on and you can compare classes between airlines Seatguru.com has information on both.
Yes, you have to use a third party site to determine basic information like product size. That's a bad thing.
Imagine buying other products like that. Neither the manufacturer and the store tell you the basic size of your TV, won't show you a demo model, instead you have to get that information off of a third party site, and they can arbitrarily change the model they sell you, even after you've paid.

There is a guarantee that if you pay extra for economy plus you'll get exactly that.
But no guarantee what that means. There's a local airline whose "Premium economy" class has seats which vary by several inches in pitch and an inch in width, depending on what aircraft they assign to a route. And what aircraft they assign can change between booking and flying. Oh, and unless you are paying full fare (which is over three times their typical "discount" fares), you can't swap flights. There's no "guarantee" that I'll get what I thought I paid for. Nothing on my ticket that says the minimum size seat I'm guaranteed, even if I paid extra specifically for that size.
That's within one airline. Good luck trying to comparison shop on price and seat-size between airlines.

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Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Re:Anthropometrics by LynnwoodRooster · 2014-09-07 14:17 · Score: 2

Hi there. You don't know me, but Alaska Airlines and Cathay Pacific certainly do. I've maintained MVP Gold (and, since 2011 when the new tier started, MVP Gold 75K - 75,000+ miles per year) on Alaska, and Diamond (120,000+ miles per year) on Cathay Pacific for the last 9 years. About 2 million miles in less than a decade. I fly a bit... In fact, I just got back from Hong Kong, on CX882 that arrived this afternoon in Los Angeles.
I am curious about your claim of only 1 airline offering your flight. What city do you arrive in, Internationally? Short of North Korea, Turkmenistan (Tashkent Air really isn't that bad), or a handful of other fascist dictatorships, I can't think of an International city that would be served by just 1 airline.
As far as US travel goes, I can't remember the last time I bought a business/first class seat - exclusive buyer of economy here. And I cannot remember the last time I was NOT bumped up to business class (that's what comes with massive standing with the airlines). That means that, up to 2 days prior to my domestic departure, there were still business-class seats unsold - and they give them to high-mileage travelers like me, for free. If you want extra legroom, I suggest you consider buying extra legroom - it seems to be plentiful, at least on Alaska Air and Delta (Delta recognizes my status with Alaska) - my two choices for domestic flights.
As far as Asian flights, you must not mean any going into, out from, or within China. For example, China Southern flies A380s for some of its domestic flights, it has so many fliers. China Eastern, Xiamen Air, Shanghai Air, all pack out all the time. It does pay to buy business class in China - but it's relatively affordable.

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Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Re:Anthropometrics by CohibaVancouver · 2014-09-07 14:34 · Score: 2

Yes, and flying costs more than the Greyhound bus, especially when you multiply that by the number of people in your family.

That's why there are very cheap seats, with lousy legroom. If you want a little more, you pay a little more. If it's too much, stay in the cheaper seats, take the Greyhound, or don't go.
Re:Anthropometrics by FatLittleMonkey · 2014-09-07 15:59 · Score: 2

You misunderstand. I'm not saying you won't get "economy plus" if you pay for "economy plus", or "business" if you pay for "business". I'm saying that there's no guarantee what that means. Show me on your ticket where it says "minimum 34 inch seat-pitch guaranteed".
I'm saying if you look at the price of two airline tickets for the same class on the same route, one is $500, one is $550, which one has the most legroom? The $550? Not necessarily. There's no information given by the airlines on what sized seat you are buying which allows you to compare. Your original comment said, paraphrasing, blamed the consumers for buying the cheapest option, but the airlines don't give the information I need to chose between them. How do consumers influence the quality of a product if they can't differentiate between products before buying?
In reality, most casual fliers actually over-pay for their tickets because it's so difficult to untangle pricing information, even without getting into differences in seats sizes between different airlines, different aircraft within an airline, different seats within an aircraft. I'm a book-keeper and finding the best value ticket for a given trip is harder than filing my employer's monthly payroll taxes and employee superannuation. Airlines have made an art of obfuscation.
[It is possible to work it out using third party sites, but trying to use them to compare, say, three airlines on a particular route based on price-versus-seat-pitch is extremely difficult. There's no easy comparison system to say "I want to go from A to B, over this approx period, what is the price/seat-size comparison across all airlines?"
There are local airlines where the pitch of "Premium economy" (economy plus) seating is the same as another airline's more expensive "Business" class seats, if they fly the right model aircraft on that route, on that day. If they fly a slightly different model, their "Premium economy" seats are shorter than the "Basic economy" seats on the first airline. Four inch variation between aircraft.]]

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Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Re:Anthropometrics by arglebargle_xiv · 2014-09-07 18:30 · Score: 2

I'm 5'11" and there is plenty of room in Economy plus. If you're a frequent flyer you can get Economy Plus for free when you book a ticket on United, I assume Delta is the same for their frequent flyers.
I'm 1.95m (6'5" for Americans) and once had to fly Austrian Airlines transatlantic. They have 31 or even 30" seat spacing, the seats were so cramped I had to sit with my legs angled out sideways, and to shift them from the right to the left had to lift them up, move across, and drop them down again (bit hard to explain in text form). For eight hours.
Result: I've asked our travel people to never, ever book me on an Austrian flight again. Well, that and Hello Kitty Airways.
So they may have saved a few dollars by squashing in some extra seats, but they've permanently lost a passenger who does quite a bit of flying to Austria. I don't know how many others they've lost this way...
Re:Anthropometrics by flyneye · 2014-09-08 00:11 · Score: 2

No, no, the answer is TO ADAPT. Excercise human flexibility by solving the problem. Don't rely on some consortium to come up with some soft answer that doesn't promote Darwinian progress!
Simply do this; pull a clean handkerchief and that bottle marked skin cleanser from your in-flight luggage. Pour the chloroform you secreted inside the bottle on the kerchief and apply it to the breathing intake of the offending recliner, who has put himself in an ergonomic position for the procedure. Then, when the sedation sets in, merely shove his chair forward to create a luxuriant amount of knee room. This eliminates any messy arguments, complaining or inconvenience. Blessed are the peacemakers....

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*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Re:Anthropometrics by DriveDog · 2014-09-08 05:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

Competition in Europe isn't just between airlines. Serious passenger rail service in the US would do a world of good.
Re:Anthropometrics by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2014-09-10 15:05 · Score: 2

I would agree with you, except that a free and competitive market can only work this way if it's also an informed market.
If you can lawfully sell someone a ticket for a flight, which they purchase with reasonable expectations in terms of promptness, comfort or whatever else, and you can then fail to meet the customer's reasonable expectations when they bought their ticket without their having any recourse, then you aren't really in a competitive market at all. The customer has no way to know when, or how, to vote with their wallet.
You can certainly make a reasonable argument that this is more about transparency and advertising standards than it is about needing heavyweight industry regulation, but either way the current market dynamics evidently are not sufficient to protect the customer alone.

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If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.

cram lots of people in a confined space by ihtoit · 2014-09-07 00:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

and this is what happens. Survival 101: you do not violate my personal space. EVER.

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Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel

Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 00:43 · Score: 5, Funny

Amateurs.
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by Rick+Zeman · 2014-09-07 00:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

and this is what happens. Survival 101: you do not violate my personal space. EVER.
What's your "personal space" in this context? Having a button to recline your seat conveys permission to use said button. That said, one uses it judiciously and slowly...and you have the right to do the same.
It's when idiots use something like Knee Defender that the system falls apart.
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by naughtynaughty · 2014-09-07 01:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

Tall people are free to purchase bulkhead and emergency row seats right now. If you are super-sized you need to plan ahead to make sure you can find seating that fits you, business/first class is also an option but it also fills up. First come, first served. The last thing the airlines need is gate agents with a tape measure to make sure you "qualify" for certain seats. You also have the option of approaching me in my 2nd exit row, aisle seat, and offering to pay me to move to your less comfortable seat. Similar to how you can buy a better concert ticket and sell your inferior one. Free market at work, you can almost always get what you want it just becomes a matter of price.
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by naughtynaughty · 2014-09-07 01:56 · Score: 2

I'd say that 90% of the people in front of me on a flight > 2 hrs recline there seat and I've never considered any of them to be a fucking asshole. I would make the general observation that people who run around thinking lots of other people are fucking assholes usually are the ones who are fucking assholes. You see them on the road at times, swearing at every other driver around them as they weave in and out of lanes. Sometimes the end up on a plane too. Sometimes they end up getting escorted off the plane in handcuffs.
Re: cram lots of people in a confined space by Ol+Olsoc · 2014-09-07 02:15 · Score: 2

Sounds like an excellent reason to not choose to sit in the last row of an airplane. The seats don't recline and you have a bathroom right next to you.
And everyone on the flight can get first class seating too, right?
You need to design us a concert venue seating say 15,000 people with only front row seats.

--
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Re: cram lots of people in a confined space by qbast · 2014-09-07 02:21 · Score: 2

I always wondered why they call it business class when no business I have ever been involved with has ever paid for a business class ticket.
It is class for businessmen (owners, board members, C-level executives), not for lowly peons making business trips.
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by Nemyst · 2014-09-07 02:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

Bullshit. Why should I pay more for being taller? This isn't a choice, is it? What the airlines are doing is essentially discrimination.

What infuriates me the most though is that I've heard more and more that obese people get special status and the ability to use two seats while only paying for one, but tall people get nothing. Obesity is not inherent to the person, height is.
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by dugancent · 2014-09-07 03:08 · Score: 2

How do you feel about fat people who spill into the seat next to them? They cry discrimination but as far as i'm concerned, they should have to buy two seats.

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SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by j-turkey · 2014-09-07 03:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

Why should everyone else pay more so that all other seats are larger to accomodate your height? I fit in the seats alright. Others do, too. Obesity isn't always the fault of an obese person, and I dont hear you suggesting that all seats accomodate them (in fact, they have to pay for two seats). Should small cars for small people be banned just because you don't fit in them? How about mandating that all clothing manufacturers make clothes that fit small people (at your expense) so that short people don't have to pay more for clothes that fit. I'm not trying to be mean about this, but what you wrote sounded ridiculously self-entitled. You are not entitled to special accomodations just because you're tall. You already get them. Tall people tend to make significantly more money than short people. Use that money to buy bigger seats rather than asking the rest of the world to pay more for their seats to accomodate your needs.

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-Turkey
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by Oligonicella · 2014-09-07 03:53 · Score: 2

Having a trigger to fire your weapon conveys permission to use said button.
Utter bullshit analogy. As is all games-based reasoning.
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by Oligonicella · 2014-09-07 03:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

Because you consume more space and fuel.
Re:cram lots of people in a confined space by spire3661 · 2014-09-07 05:47 · Score: 2

Or the airline should be forced to accept the fact that people come in many shapes and sizes and plan accordingly.

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Good-bye

Today's business class is the 70s' economy class by ControlFreal · 2014-09-07 00:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

Judging by images like these, today's business class is pretty much what economy class used to be in the 70s. Some argue that flying has become too cheap. I beg to disagree: flying in a humane manner has not become cheaper, it's just that you'd have to book business class nowadays.

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Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by boaworm · 2014-09-07 00:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

Well put. Prices have gone down drastically because of a number of factors.
* Less space per pax
* Better aircraft and engine
* Better utilization of aircraft
* Reduced service (drinks+meals moved to paid ancillaries)

Todays "coach" class really is no more than a bus. If you want comfort, upgrade. Else, suffer in silence :-)

--
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele

Re:How about... by ILongForDarkness · 2014-09-07 00:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

Probably reasonable. The problem is the first time you fly with an airline you have no idea how crammed they are versus the competition. Add to that they keep changing the configuration of the planes and you have no idea. I flew recently to Prague on Air Transit. On the way there the most comfortable I've flown yet other than when in an emergency aisle (and in a way better since the seat in front was close enough that I had access to a usb charger). On the way back: cramped as hell with about 20 3 yr olds in the surrounding 5 rows front and back. Same airline and route 1 week apart. You never know what you are getting for your $1000 and that isn't right.

The seats get smaller, while the average person by jenningsthecat · 2014-09-07 00:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

gets both larger, (higher BMI, greater average height), and older, (aging population). Something's gotta give.

I know! How about some shareholders agreeing to make slightly less profit on their investments in order to increase comfort and safety for many millions of people? And how about the food industry agreeing to dial it down on the addictive, fattenning foods they make and push?

Nah, silly idea - forget I said it. What was I thinking?

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'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.

Re:Last night by boaworm · 2014-09-07 00:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

Re:my solution is the gym by DNS-and-BIND · 2014-09-07 01:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re:my solution is the gym by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2014-09-07 01:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.

Re:Last night by CaseCrash · 2014-09-07 01:09 · Score: 5, Funny

Sporadic 1 day delays due to Eyjafjallajökull

Ha! Iceland... I had to google that name just to make sure your cat didn't walk on the keyboard...

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No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by mark_reh · 2014-09-07 01:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

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?

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by Charliemopps · 2014-09-07 01:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

I used to think that... then I flew through Asia and the Middle East.
Plenty of leg room, free dinner that was actually tasty, free drinks, the flight attendants treated you like royalty.
But most importantly: The tickets were cheaper.

So one has to question whats wrong with airlines here... why can't they make money? My only conclusion is that the frequent bailouts they've received has allowed them to institutionalize failures in their business models. We need to stop "Saving" industries/businesses. Failure is good for the system.

The whole industry needs to rethink pricing. by mark_reh · 2014-09-07 01:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

Ticket prices should be based on a combo of flying weight and space. Flying weight is passenger plus baggage weight. Space is a function of height/weight of the passenger and dimensions of their bags. If you're really tall, and/or really fat, you're going to pay more for a comfortable seat, but you will get a comfortable, safe seat, and those around you will, too.

It shouldn't be too hard to make aircraft seating configurable for passengers of different weights/heights.

It seems likely to me that cramming seats so close together is a safety issue. I wonder what the wreck stats show about leg injuries.

Re:Oh dear, the widening wealth gap.. by ScentCone · 2014-09-07 01:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.

Yup by goldcd · 2014-09-07 01:28 · Score: 2

I'm tall 6'3", which isn't ridiculously tall
Plenty of planes I get on and just sitting my knee is touching the back of the seat in front of me - usually get some space by dumping the catalogues from the seat pocket - but I'm not a fan of reclining seats.
Because my knee's on the seat, I can't even slouch to get my legs under the seat in-front (and then the stupid tray won't go flat as it rests of my knees.
I am not a fan of flying on some airlines.
Only really takes an extra inch of leg room to allow me to move a bit, and make all the above go away.
On the plus side, now these same scummy airlines seem to be charging for emergency exit rows, I do at least stand a chance of being able to get some legroom for a vaguely affordable price.

Re:Yup by naughtynaughty · 2014-09-07 01:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
Re: Yup by NemoinSpace · 2014-09-07 02:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

Airlines were actually one of the first to get paying customers to do their work for them. Closely followed by gas stations. Computer OEMs perfected it by actually selling you an additional warranty with the provision that you spend a minimum of 3 hours on the phone learning a foreign language and disovering how not to force sodimms in backwards.
I've flown twice since Bush gave arresting powers to 19 y/o waitresses. Putting up with this stuff on your way to a funeral is really too much. But it gives you a lot of perspective.

I see two possible scenarios: by mark_reh · 2014-09-07 01:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

The local paper had this tidbit by Provocateur · 2014-09-07 01:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

The gentleman in question had wanted to use his laptop to update his notes after a business trip, if I recall correctly. He put the gizmo called 'knee defender' so that the passenger wouldn't recline as he worked on his computer. He says he should have handled things differently; he was stunned when 1) the passenger actually poured water on him, splashing a bit on his laptop, and 2) that their plane was diverted over the incident. He also switched to an airline that didn't have reclining seats the rest of the trip

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WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.

Re:The local paper had this tidbit by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 03:32 · Score: 4, Interesting

The gentleman in question had wanted to use his laptop to update his notes after a business trip, if I recall correctly. He put the gizmo called 'knee defender' so that the passenger wouldn't recline as he worked on his computer. He says he should have handled things differently; he was stunned when 1) the passenger actually poured water on him, splashing a bit on his laptop, and 2) that their plane was diverted over the incident. He also switched to an airline that didn't have reclining seats the rest of the trip
Well, to put it more accurately, by installing the device, he removed the ability of the woman in front of him to recline her seat without informing her that he had done so. He noticed the complaint from the woman to the flight attendant that her seat was not reclining and/or the flight attendant asked him to remove the devices, at which time he removed the devices. The woman reclined her seat abruptly, which almost damaged his laptop. Then he pushed back hard on the seat and reinstalled the device, at which time the woman threw her drink at him. The woman was moved to another seat, but the man apparently verbally abused the flight attendant, and this resulted in the diversion. It was probably not his choice to book a different airline that did not have reclining seats, it was probably that the airline refused to book him a continuing flight.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/03/air-traveler-at-the-center-of-the-great-seat-reclining-debate-im-pretty-ashamed/

Re:This happened to me by rknop · 2014-09-07 01:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

So, they've reached the limits of human endurance by scotts13 · 2014-09-07 01:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Engineering solution by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 01:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

Sounds like the pivot for the recline is incorrectly placed. I regularly travel by train, and am then offered the opportunity to recline my seat by releasing a latch and moving the seat forwards. It reduces my own knee space, not anyone elses.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by quetwo · 2014-09-07 01:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

Wish I could upgrade. My company will only book the cheapest fare (X or lower), which usually ends up to be about a $500 fare between Detroit and LAX. Because they won't pay for the upgrade, I have to wait for the day of the flight to do an upgrade, and the last time I tried, they offered an upgrade to business class for an additional $600, or first for $1200. I used to be able to use my miles to upgrade, but Delta changed the rules so that I can only use my miles to book flights. I'm always number 200 on the upgrade list because they take care of the families that got their branded credit cards before me (I only have 200,000 miles -- but somehow the people who never flew before have 250,000 on their account).

The other solution people give is to fly another airline. That's fine if you are in New York or California -- but in the midwest, there are only two to choose from -- United and Delta. Both are in a heavy competition to see who can be worse. Every airport within 250 miles of me only offers one of those two to any destination that is not Florida or Mexico.

But that's ok. I guess I deserve it. Every time I fly my knees swell up and look like and apple after a food fight because the 5' 3" housewife ahead of me deserves to lounge in comfort. I have an appointment to have the cartridge behind my knees to be scoped because they are torn up -- and I don't run marathons or do any activities that would produce that outcome (other than flying a few times a month). Being a healthy 6'4" with long legs is not easy if you need to travel in the USA for your job.

Re:Last night by Tyr07 · 2014-09-07 01:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Re:How about... by dukeblue219 · 2014-09-07 01:58 · Score: 2

You can always lookup your flight on one of the seat rating sites ahead of time (try SeatGuru for example). You'll get a map of which seats to avoid, and data on the seat width and pitch for each airliner. You shouldn't have to "not know" what you're getting for your money if you just do 5 minutes of research.

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-Ted http://www.freemathhelp.com/

How would we know? by Sycraft-fu · 2014-09-07 01:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

There's no choice. There isn't a "little bit better" choice on domestic flights, even international flights on the same continent. When I fly up to Canada to visit my parents I have two options: Coach or First Class. The prices are VASTLY different, first class is over double the price of coach. Now it is much nicer, wide seats, plenty of legroom, and all the booze you'd like if you are the sort of person who likes to drink. But it is really expensive.

There's no mid-range option. I can't pay 1.2x the coach price for something a bit better. If I could, I would.

So how would they know? I've never seen it tried. If they offered the option and those seats always sat empty, or were full of people who had been given upgrades for no money, then ok, remove them. But they aren't available. Your only options are "cheapest possible" or "waaaaaay more expensive."

Re:How would we know? by CohibaVancouver · 2014-09-07 02:57 · Score: 4, Informative

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...
Re:How would we know? by CohibaVancouver · 2014-09-07 03:25 · Score: 2

Economy plus is the same as seats as economy.
Width-wide, yes - But they have wicked-good legroom which for me, and many other people, is really all the difference.
Re:How would we know? by cnaumann · 2014-09-07 04:03 · Score: 2

Exit row seating usually offers a bit more leg room with no reclining seats in front of you. It used to be free, now many airlines charge for it. Therer is no shortage of takers.
I am 6 foot 6. I would rather stand for two hours than try to sit in one of those seats. Only problem is that i am not allowed to stand (I have asked) and on many planes I can't stand up straight anyway. I don't need the knee defender. If you are sitting in front of me, you will not be able to recline your seat.

Re:How about... by v1 · 2014-09-07 02:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'll forgo my mod pts today to make a comment on this I've been wanting to say.

The problem is the first time you fly with an airline you have no idea how crammed they are versus the competition.

What they really ought to be mandated to do is provide physical examples of their seating and storage at the terminal. No more of this guesswork as to what's going to fit in the bin, what's going to fit under the seat, whether or not SirEatsAlot can squeeze into a cattle class seat without "spilling over". No questions as to whether or not my knees can clear the seat in front of me. Seats shown with seat in front in reclining position with a "this is what your fellow passenger is allowed to do to you" sign.

This is mainly an issue of not being able to see the product before paying for it and only after your purchase is non-returnable. This ought to already be illegal. You ought to be able to sit down in a demo seat at the terminal, get out your laptop, realize there is NO space to use it, say "screw that!", get a refund, and get up and walk to the terminal across the way and rebook on another airline.

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I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by tompaulco · 2014-09-07 02:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.

Re:Wait a minute, a few years ago I recall and AA by quetwo · 2014-09-07 02:04 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Re:my solution is the gym by wasteofspace77 · 2014-09-07 02:17 · Score: 2

You must be short. Any discussion with said Air Marshall would quickly and visually indicate that there is no room between your seatback and my knee in any position. Short legged people just don't understand that.

This thread basically proves the point... by Electricity+Likes+Me · 2014-09-07 02:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by qbast · 2014-09-07 02:22 · Score: 2

Because you can't afford anything better. Now you see?

Re:Oh dear, the widening wealth gap.. by Nemyst · 2014-09-07 02:43 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-07 02:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Something's gotta give by RogueWarrior65 · 2014-09-07 02:49 · Score: 2

I'm wondering at what point are the consumers going to rebel against all of this. The whole luggage debacle has to be included in this discussion too. First, the airlines decided to start charging for checked baggage. The customers responded by not just switching to carry-ons but finding the biggest carry-on possible and getting one for each of their kids too. Trouble is that overhead storage can't accommodate one of these for every passenger so now the extras have to get checked at the door and they don't get charged for this either. The result is more pissed off customers and departure delays. The real question is why this had to happen in the first place. Was it the additional cost of fuel? Unlikely because fuel costs are directly related to weight and the planes know how much they weigh. Is it then the higher cost of fuel? Maybe but if domestic production of oil has been increasing over the past ten plus years and is now surpassing imports to the point of producers wanting to export, why are the fuel costs still as high as they were ten years ago? Or is it labor costs which never go down?

Which leads us to the seating arrangements. Adding 10 more seats puts another roughly $5000 revenue per flight assuming that the flight is fully booked. Would you be willing to pay an extra $33.33 for one inch of legroom? If people aren't willing to spend $25 to check a bag, $33.33 must make people apoplectic. What would you be willing to give up to bring those costs down and the comfort level up?

Proposal by Midnight+Thunder · 2014-09-07 02:51 · Score: 2

Two things come out of this:
- IATA needs to regulate this.
- Leg spacing and seat size should be mandatory provided information in any booking.

On one hand you can argue that the passengers are getting what they pay for, but on the other hand you can also argue that customers don't have this information, at time of booking, to make an informed purchase choice.

At the same time if fights break out often enough, requiring forced landings, then I think people will start realising this cost saving is actually getting expensive (extra cost due to unplanned landings, time and reputation).

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Jumpstart the tartan drive.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by GNious · 2014-09-07 02:56 · Score: 2

Wish I could upgrade. My company will only book the cheapest fare (X or lower), which ....

This is actually a core part of the problem - as companies switched to this policy of Cheapest-Fare-Only, and only looking at the immediate costs (and not extras, like luggage, meals, oxygen etc), airline companies got into a race to the bottom in costs (services etc per passenger) without any profitable group to help offset their bottom-line; business customers used to be good money for the airline companies when they traveled Business or First class.

So now we have a setup where the immediate ticket price is the only thing that matters (try getting approval for a route that costs 20USD more while taking 30 minutes less); Service, well-being, flight-time/route and other things that the traveler might be interested in have gone away, and if you're scheduled to meet a customer it is your own fault for looking like shite after 5-6 hours squeezed into a painful, static sitting "position".

The airline companies are giving their largest customers (i.e. companies) exactly what they want: a seemingly cheap flight for some employee.

Cheapest Ticket by Roger+W+Moore · 2014-09-07 02:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

The only way this would work is to place height restrictions on the different classes of seat. I'm an academic and when travelling for work I have to purchase the cheapest ticket. Without a height restriction I would then be forced to purchase a ticket for a seat I physically could not sit down it (I already have to pull out the magazines on US carriers to allow blood flow to my feet).

This can then open the debate about whether it is reasonable for an airline to charge someone extra just for being tall - something they had no control over and which is gender-biased. After all they don't charge more to provide special meals for those with dietary preferences or religious beliefs and, with the exception of medical conditions, that is a voluntary choice. Nor, I hope, do they charge disabled passengers extra for transporting wheelchairs etc.

Re:Oh dear, the widening wealth gap.. by ScentCone · 2014-09-07 03:03 · Score: 2

flying is as much a luxury as is having an auto

Right, exactly. Another thing that most people in the world don't have.

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Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by tommeke100 · 2014-09-07 03:14 · Score: 2

6'4" buddy here.
I always take an aisle seat which gives me the chance to stretch my legs whenever I want too.
If you travel for work, flights are often booked late so you may not have the chance of choosing your seat.
However, I don't mind for short flights (2 hrs). Transantlantic flights (+8hrs) are hell.

Reclining should be banned in coach. by brunes69 · 2014-09-07 03:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

Re:Reclining should be banned in coach. by brunes69 · 2014-09-07 07:56 · Score: 2

Oh go BZZZT yourself.
Look, you can pontificate on and on about the glory days of yesteryear where you had enough legroom to roast a pig until you're blue in the face, but the simple FACT is that TODAY there is not enough legroom in coach to offer reclining. This is due mainly to the downward price pressures of a fiercely competitive airline industry with razor-thin margins.
If you want room to recline, then feel free to purchase a premium economy seat (which by the way costs LESS than the same economy seat did 10 years ago). If you're too cheap to do this, then suck it up.
Re: Reclining should be banned in coach. by brunes69 · 2014-09-07 08:44 · Score: 2

Which is why in my original post I said reclining should be removed/banned.
It's coming soon you can be assured. Airlines won't keep putting up with the costs of these disruptions, they'll just disable reclining. And we shall rejoice.
Re:Reclining should be banned in coach. by rsclient · 2014-09-07 16:08 · Score: 2

I don't understand this modern "etiquette". Airline says have a recline button; it has exactly one function, and people are using it correctly. How can anyone then suggest that politeness requires that people should not recline their seats?

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Re:Reclining should be banned in coach. by McFly777 · 2014-09-08 05:40 · Score: 2

Reclining your seat on plane... screws up their tray table angle, and it makes it IMPOSSIBLE for the person to get any work done in the plane.
Mechanical engineer and former seat-mechanism engineer here to correct one small error. From all of the flights that I have ever been on, the tray angle is not affected by the recline of the seat, because the tray is attached (and its angle set) at the bottom of the seat, well below the pivot point of the recliner mechanism. What does happen is that the distance between the tray and the alcove in which the tray stores decreases a bit, resulting in potential damage to a laptop which has been "improperly" wedged between the two. (stay calm... I put the quotes there to indicate that I don't really mean that there is an improper location. However, one should be aware of the issue and be careful in how you position your equipment.)
Now, I will also add that, personally, I try to avoid doing any work while on the airplane (in coach). If my employer wants me to do work, then they can pay for first class, where I can have a (closer to) ergonomic workspace. (ergonimic workstations are required by OSHA etc. after all) My job for those hours is to allow myself to be transported in space to a different point on the globe, and I try to make the best of that by doing some pleasure reading. If necessary, I will earn some comp-time once I get to the hotel, where I usually have a desk of some kind to do work; I redeem it unofficially elsewhere on the trip, or officially on another day after I return home.
Myself, I find it rude when people try to conduct business in the airplane. Reading a document quietly is one thing, holding a meeting on the cell-phone (prior to takeoff or after landing) or insisting that everyone else treat the cabin as their office-space is another thing all-together. It's also a bad idea if you have any sort of proprietary or otherwise sensitive material (legal, financial, HR-related, etc.) as you never know who might be reading over your shoulder. (Me! Well, not really... But it makes me have to try to avert my eyes to politely not see what you are rudely putting almost directly in front of my face.)

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McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by Solandri · 2014-09-07 04:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

Judging by images like these, today's business class is pretty much what economy class used to be in the 70s.

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.

Some argue that flying has become too cheap. I beg to disagree: flying in a humane manner has not become cheaper, it's just that you'd have to book business class nowadays.

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.

Adequate legroom is not a premium feature by sjbe · 2014-09-07 04:18 · Score: 2

Tall people are free to purchase bulkhead and emergency row seats right now.

So are you. Being tall isn't a choice so why should they be discriminated against if we don't force the 300 pound tub of lard next to us to pay for the portion of my seat he oozes into? After all, being fat is at least in theory a choice. There are times to be a capitalist but not when it involves human decency and dignity.

Adequate leg room isn't a premium feature. It's simple human decency to allow taller than average passengers the ability to sit with reasonable comfort without forcing them to pay more for the "privilege". There is nothing wrong with airlines waiving premium seating fees for unusually tall passengers to get them a adequate leg room. I'm all for being a capitalist for things that are genuinely extras but this doesn't fall into that category.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by JoshWurzel · 2014-09-07 04:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

If you are in the US, please let your company know that they're risking a worker's comp suit by refusing to purchase you the legroom that you need. Protecting the health of employees on the job is not optional. They may not have the same obligation if you're overweight (unless squeezing into the seat is also injuring you), but if you are incurring injuries during the execution of your job responsibilities then the company needs to do what it takes to prevent that from happening, up to and including eliminating travel from your job responsibilities.

People also need to be aware of their body type when booking on their own dime. Cattle class is fine for a couple hours if you're less than 5'10" and less than 160 lbs. I'm small enough to fly across the US in standard economy. But if you're too big to fit in a standard seat, you need to do the right thing for *your* health and comfort.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by scarboni888 · 2014-09-07 04:31 · Score: 2

I still fail to grasp the 'necessity' part. If family is that important then don't live half a planet away from them and then whine about it. Change your priorities because the world isn't going to change to suit you.

Inconsiderate by sjbe · 2014-09-07 04:37 · Score: 2

The knee defenders are narcissistic jerks.

So are the people reclining. Both sides are being inconsiderate here and I don't see either as being more wrong than they other.

The airlines should just disable the recline option

That I agree with. Honestly the seats don't recline enough to really matter except for the placebo effect in most cases. Plus then they don't have to make people "return their seats to their full upright and locked position" on every flippin' flight.

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by Mousit · 2014-09-07 04:39 · Score: 2

This is something that still shocks me every time I fly on a non-American airline; I never get used to it. Probably because the domestic American airlines continue to get worse, so every foreign airline experience seems even better by comparison. :P

As an example, I recently flew to China. All on Air China. NYC -> Beijing, Beijing -> Xi'an, Xi'an -> Shanghai, Shanghai -> Beijing, and Beijing -> NYC. That entire itinerary cost about the same as a round-trip flight between NYC and Beijing would cost alone, using an American airline that flies that route. I checked. I checked several actually, using Orbitz and such.

The cabin amenities were surprising to me too. I'm so used to domestic commuter flights being little puddle-jumper planes where you.. just don't get anything. You're lucky if you get something to drink (some two-hour flights don't do drink service though you can ask for a drink). Air China apparently has a fairly standard plane configuration for both international and domestic flights, even short two-hour domestic flights. The seats are wider than American counterparts. The spacing is maybe about the same though; I'm a short person so I'm not the best to comment about legroom, but to me it felt like I had more. Every seat had an entertainment system built into the headrest in front of you, even on short-haul planes. A large selection of movies, TV shows, and games. All of it free; domestic American flights I've been on that have this service (which is typically only longer-haul flights to begin with) usually charge money for much or most of the selection.

On top of that, every flight was free food and drink. The overseas flight served two full meals, which admittedly is kind of expected even from American flights of that length. However, what really surprised me was the in-country flights. Going from Beijing to Xi'an is about two, two and a half hours. A full meal was still served to everyone. Same thing for heading to Shanghai and eventually back to Beijing. All those flights were two or three hours. Full meals, every one. And all on top of the realization of what that entire itinerary cost.

Now, I realize there's some economies of scale at play with a domestic Chinese airline (flying a much larger Chinese population), and also some state-run subsidization factors at play too, but that can't cover ALL of it. And I'm not saying all the domestic Americans need to go to THAT level of service (though it would be nice) with a meal on every flight no matter how short, or such things. Nonetheless, the shear size and scope of the service level difference, and price difference, between the two was shockingly astounding. Reinforced by the fact that I don't live in NYC itself, so I got to and from there via a domestic American airline and had a terrible experience both directions, with a round-trip ticket price that was more than a third what that whole Air China flight itinerary cost.

Getting outside our own borders can teach you a lot about how good American life is in many ways compared to the rest of the world--something we shouldn't forget, but it can also show you just how bad we have it in other ways, especially when it comes to consumer(/employee, even more) business economics of any kind. Yeah yeah, "first world problems" and all that. Fuck that. A problem is a problem, and it shouldn't be hand-waved away just because "we have it better than so much of the world". Yeah, we do. And we could have even better than that.

Re:Being tall isn't a choice by lgw · 2014-09-07 04:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

Having adequate leg room isn't a "premium feature", it's what should simply be standard

"Economy plus" or whatever they call the seats wit normal legroom is the old-school standard. Think of is this way: you can buy a "standard seat" ticket for $350, or an "I don't care how you torture me just give me the cheapest price" ticket for $300. 90% of customers choose the torture option over the standard option, cheap bastards, but you don't have to.

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Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

my solution by goombah99 · 2014-09-07 04:48 · Score: 2

I just bring a car jack, and jack the seat in front of me right off it's rails.

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Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Re:Oh dear, the widening wealth gap.. by phantomfive · 2014-09-07 05:16 · Score: 2

flying is as much a luxury as is having an auto.

The sense of entitlement is strong in this one

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."

Re:This happened to me by kevmeister · 2014-09-07 05:31 · Score: 2

Last year on a flight from Hawaii to the US I was told by the flight attendant that I was too tall (6'2") to fly coach and that if I was in coach on another of her flight, I would be removed. She said that the woman in front of me had the absolute right to recline all the way and that it was up to me to adjust myself to a position where she could do so.If my legs were too long, that was my problem.

It was rather annoying to be chastised for being too tall (I'm hardly a giant) when I have had to share a quarter of my rather narrow seat with an obese person (where I was chastised for not understanding that passengers of size must be accommodated. Guess people over 6' tall need to start a group to get recognized as protected group so we get priority over the lean-back crew.

Oh, and after she could not lean back all the way, even with my legs twisted over to the side in very uncomfortable position, the attendant took pity on me and moved the lady in front of me to first class, but then reminded me that she had better not see me in coach again. (She won't. I'll never fly United again.)

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Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired

Re:Today's business class is the 70s' economy clas by chihowa · 2014-09-07 06:06 · Score: 2

And we could have even better than that.

I also fail to understand the mindset that we should silently endure any cuts to our standard of living until we're as bad off as the worst among us. Our goal as a civilization and a species should be to constantly ratchet up everyone's standard of living so that we're all better off than we previously were.

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If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.

Why do they bother to divert at all? by ctmurray · 2014-09-07 10:26 · Score: 2

Why do the divert the flight over these minor upsets? I assume the flight attendants can distinguish between two people in a minor scuffle and say a terrorist assault on the crew? With locked cockpits the plane is in little danger of being hijacked. One of the flights diverted to an airport in the same state, so not really saving any time. I would argue there is a small increase in the danger by requiring the pilots change their flight plan and land at a (possibly) unknown airport. The diversion inconveniences the rest of the passengers, with no apparent (to me) improvement in safety or solving the situation.

Re:How about... by FatLittleMonkey · 2014-09-07 12:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

When you have to use a third-party service to find a basic description of the product you are buying, the market has failed.

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Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.

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