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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.
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?"
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
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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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.
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?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
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
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.
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...
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
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.
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.
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.
I'll forgo my mod pts today to make a comment on this I've been wanting to say.
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.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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/
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.