Airline Seat Space Is About More Than Comfort

"Skyrider" seats demonstrated several years ago at a trade show. If adopted by the FAA, and for long trips, passengers better be ready for blood clots and hemorrhoids - also escaping a possible disaster.

As Spring break unfolds, airline travelers are confronted not only by absurdly long TSA security lines (as staffing has been scaled down by 15 percent) but also by ever reduced seat pitch in economy class. For example, Spirit airlines has now reduced the space between seats to 28 inches, which might tempt some to use the infamous "knee defender" which came to light two years ago. To refresh memories, the device is designed to protect the knees and legs of a tall, lanky passenger in the seat behind. It works by preventing the forward passenger from exercising the recline option. Needless to say, a number of angry altercations erupted on planes where some passengers attempted to use it.

Now, Sen. Chuck Schumer, to the chagrin of airline profiteers,  has proposed a law mandating that the FAA require more legroom. While some nabobs have insisted this is specious, a matter of the government setting decrees on acceptable comfort (and costs) it is actually about something more important - safety. If seat pitches are too narrow than in the event of an emergency - such as a fire on a plane - they make seat egress much more difficult. Schumer's argument is that we shouldn't await a calamity to address the matter. I agree.

It doesn't take an Einstein or 'rocket scientist' to figure out why the airlines have crammed more rows and seats into their planes. It is all about money, profits. The more seats, the more fares and the more moola collected. In the case of Spirit, if the current 28 inches pitch was mandated to be 31 inches, the airline would effectively lose at least two rows of seats. This is based on the 26-row configuration posted on the website SeatGuru.  Multiplied over a lot of Spirit flights that translates into significant revenue lost.

The Neoliberal capitalist nabobs aren't that concerned with safety issues, even one disaster that might claim 100 lives because most passengers were unable to get out in time. No, they are more exercised over the disappearance of low cost fares - evidently believing passengers care more about low cost flights than the ability to escape a plane fire erupting just before takeoff.

One of the opinion pieces appearing in the Denver Post yesterday - against Schumer's plan - claimed:

"In January, the travel website Skift attempted to calculate the cost of additional legroom and recline on a passenger jet flying in the competitive North Atlantic region (e.g. London to New York). The conclusion: $33 per inch or $13.33 per degree of recline"

The implication here is that an economy passenger isn't willing to pay for an extra 3 inches of leg room (say $99 according to the Skift analysis) if it could save the person's life. Of course, in the person's own cost -benefit analysis he or she may believe the occasion for which the extra inches matter - say to escape a plan fire - has too low a probability of occurrence to trade for higher fares. True, but if and when that odd event happens would you still want to be trapped? Think before answering.

The Neoliberal author pushing against any FAA regulatory mandate noted that "many economy class passengers already have the option to purchase economy -plus seats"  with 6 extra inches of legroom. The price is about 18 percent higher than economy class.  But he adds that  Skift's analysis shows that the "passenger load factor - the seats occupied by paying customers - in economy -plus cabins, only averages 36 percent."

In other words, airline passengers evidently don't value extra leg room as much as low fares. But if this proposition is true, why do so many passengers try to resort to the use of knee defenders on flights?  The increasing use of these devices shows that many passengers do value the extra leg room, even if one analysis by one site for one level of cabin (economy-plus) seems to show otherwise.

Before the era of airline deregulation in the 1980s, many of us (boomers) were flying comfortably in the 1960s, on Pan Am, Eastern and National Airlines. We enjoyed spacious seat pitch as well as seat width - and halfway decent airline meals. The typical fare to fly from Miami to New Orleans in 1969 was $90 which would translate into $360 in today's dollars. To us that extra comfort was more than worth the price.

I am also hard pressed to believe that airline passengers today are so inured to being packed like sardines or cattle that comfort (and safety) no longer matter and low cost trumps all. But perhaps I am wrong. Because 90 percent of the passengers traveling by air today don't know any different experience, maybe indeed it doesn't matter to them, I mean, you can't pine or miss what you never had in the first place.

Let's just hope that if that preference for lower fares is real and means embracing ever smaller seat pitch, the test for safety thresholds doesn't intrude too soon.

New Airline Coach Seating Plan Will Generate Even More Miserable Fliers

I am beginning to think that the designers of several new airline coach seating configurations are actually the reincarnations of former Inquisitors. You know - the lot that got jollies out of hanging people upside down while they thrust assorted implements into the hapless "heretics". But in terms of torture seating they  devised other devices such as the Judas Cradle, also known as the Judas chair, upon which unbelievers were forced to sit upon with predictably horrific results.



Apart from the prominent sharp, spiky seat how is this thing that different from these god-awful "bicycle" seats - proposed in a patent for coach for the Airbus, e.g.



The approval of such torture chairs would enable the grubby-greedaholic airlines to pack even more hapless souls into a confined space than the "Skyrider" seats (left) which themselves packed fifty more people per flight (going up to 220) into their 737’s -  by reducing the spacing between front and back row seats by nearly 30% from 32” to 23”.

Now enter new (more psychological if not more physical)  tortures of the damned (or at least those having to fly coach). As we know  airlines and aircraft manufactures are continuously looking for new ways to pack passengers into planes like sardines. From installing narrower seats to  the idea of bicycle-like perches , there appears to be no end to what might be considered to maximize capacity on flights. The latest concept: a seating design that takes the already awful experience of being stuck in the middle seat and makes it worse… so much worse.

Wired reports that a recently approved patent [PDF] by seat supplier Zodiac Seats France takes the middle chair and turns it around, creating an alternating seating pattern. They have labeled this bullshit the “Economy Class Cabin Hexagon” which essentially increases one seat mates from two to  four.  Worse, two of these "seat mates" now are forced to look at your mug while you have to see theirs. Unlike the good old days when we had the protection of seat backs and didn't have to worry about whether a piece of snot was dripping down or not.

The seating arrangement is described as a configuration “with at least one row having at least one forward-facing seat and at least one aft-facing seat.”



That means if you’re lucky enough to be sitting between two people, you’ll now be forced to to look two others in the eyes for an entire flight. (Obviously for families or friends traveling together this works out just fine - but not so for most singletons who prefer to read and not invite pests to have spontaneous gabfests!)

Zodiac claims in the patent that the new seating design is meant “to increase cabin density while also creating seat units that increase the space available at the shoulder and arm area.” Sorry, but all I see is an infernal arrangement that is sure to drive even more innocent coach fliers nuts - given it's bad enough to be hurled together with strangers - and now to have to look at 'em!

You can also see that while facing the opposite direction, i.e. of two seats, you’re basically smashed between two strangers. Sure, it might give you a little more freedom to move your upper body, BUT it doesn’t help the fact you likely won’t be able to completely ignore the two other seat "mates" with little else to look at than your face.  (All schzoid personality people be forewarned!)

Mercifully,  for the Hexagon design to make it to the downtrodden masses, it would first have to undergo an array of safety and compliance tests, not to mention the extremely dirty looks many travelers would surely throw such a design as well as rabid (we hope) social media takes and tweets.

But still, the airlines, always looking for bottom line benefits, could still approve it. And don't think that things couldn't get worse! A new Chinese design - yes, to save more room - has seats done away with completely and replaced with back rests and straps. Yep, you heard it here first! They would be able to pack twice as many into a plane with this 'sardine' style "configuration".

After a number of passenger meltdowns on recent flights, the airlines and feds have puzzled over what’s with the bad behavior. But this isn’t genius territory! Put any human in such cramped, undesirable conditions – with no food, minimal perks, and often screaming infants in the vicinity, and they’ll tell you things get twitchy in no time. It doesn’t take all that much to set off a frightened, irritated and ornery passenger who may have gone with little sleep the night before and whose nerves are rattled long before takeoff. Now, imagine what it'll be like if this ‘hexagon configuration’ is approved and the poor shmuck is tortured even as his mind melts down with simultaneous infants screaming and major air turbulence pounding him in his seat to boot.

Meanwhile, on one website called Flyertalk, we learned last year-  from another blogger -  just how close we are to class warfare in the sky. Evidently disgusted by the grubby conditions on his flight, this Robespierre of the unfriendly skies invoked the French Revolution and warned: "If you annoy the salt of the earth enough, the rank and file and what have you, sometimes you wind up beheaded.”

Careful there, Bud. You don't want to be classified as a terrorist under the Patriot Act. But seriously, it's actually a wonder there aren't more incidents given how the traveling public's comfort and even basic humanity is being gutted by the yen for airline profits. But maybe people are no longer surprised given how this model is ubiquitous in our society.

No, You Don't Get to Use 'Knee Defenders' When Seated in Coach!

If you think things are bad now, wait until they implement the "Skyrider" seats demonstrated 2 years ago at a trade show. If adopted by the FAA, and for long trips, passengers better be ready for blood clots and hemorrhoids. Recline? Forget about it!


The news that a United flight (# 1462)  from Newark to Denver had to be diverted to Chicago because of the eruption of bad behavior of two passengers in coach, ought to get every flier's attention. Evidently a tall male passenger in the seat behind the female - both in 'Economy Plus', mind you - placed a device called a 'knee defender' on the braces supporting the table thereby preventing the female from exercising the recline option. Upset, she stood up with a cold cup of water and splashed it into the offender's face.

Now, the knee defender has a more or less noble purpose: to protect the knees and legs of a tall, lanky person when the passenger in front reclines.  The problem is that the target is misplaced. That person in the front seat has every right on Earth to exercise her recline option especially if she paid extra moola to be seated in Economy Plus - for which airlines advertise more space between seats for about $40 more.  Hence, by using the knee defender, the offender has denied the front -seat passenger her own purchase of the Economy Plus seat!

Was her reaction over the top? Yes it was. What she ought to have done is to get the attention of a flight attendant.  Then the guy would have had to remove it because few airlines that I know of allow them, including United. Still, the FAA doesn't prohibit them, which is strange. (They want the airlines to decide the policy).

But let's be honest here: the real culprit is United for limiting the pitch of the seats - now to 31". This from an original 34" and a whopping 36" when I was flying in the 1960s. (When you had two seats across the plane, on each side of the aisle). In effect, airlines through their greed - which is all about packing more passengers in like sardines to grab more profit - have effectively denied the practical use of the recline option for many passengers. If they were honest, they'd do what two other value airlines (including 'Spirit') have done and prohibited any reclining!

This at least would serve notice to all passengers that though you might want to recline, it ain't in the cards. If you wanted that you ought to have gone business class or first. Given this official position known to all, the use of the knee defender would become redundant.

And don't think for a moment things will get any better going forward. Already on the planning boards is the the Skyrider’- but which is more accurately ‘the Sardine-maker’.  The approval of such torture chairs will enable the grubby-greedaholic airlines to pack fifty more people per flight (going up to 220) into their 737’s by reducing the spacing between front and back row seats by nearly 30% from 32” to 23”. Anyone who’s flown in economy recently knows this is a recipe for monstrous discomfort since as it is, you can barely recline to get a little sleep or sit up and read or have a drink without being disturbed by the passenger in front (especially if they suddenly jerk their seats backward)

According to Dominique Menoud, director general of Aviointeriors Group, manufacturer of these abominations:

"We feel extremely confident that this concept will ... have great appeal to airlines for economic purposes,"

How about for HUMAN purposes? Or is it that you just want to stir up more discontent? Hell, if economics is the governing purpose why not just  eliminate seats altogether and administer sleeping pills after strapping down and stacking  all the passengers like cordwood. I am certain this will  have "great economic appeal". But is that sufficient reason to DO it? I think not!

Yes, yes, I know, the current purveyors of flying box car sardine accommodations will assert flying is much safer now, with less fire prone seats, some better designs etc. that permits at least a decent chance of escape from a crash, such as we saw at San Francisco last year. That's a point, but I argue that had the regulation of airlines continued those improvements would still have been made and now, we'd have comfortable flights along with the new safety enhancements. I also am willing to believe most people are willing to pay more for comfort - as well as getting an honest airline fee when they plan a flight.

The main purpose of deregulation was for airlines to pile in more people and make more money. (And please don't tell me flights are cheaper now, because I can cite just as many examples showing how the prices of key flights are outrageous - depending on the cities involved: think $750 from COS to Atlanta!)

Yes, more people can travel today ....but what has that translated into? Well, I call it a "Greyhound of the skies". You're packed in just like you were in the old Greyhound buses of the past. Candy and nut wrappers strewn all about by the end of the flight, trying to squeeze out of your seat to use the loo, and then loads of cranky passengers not at all enthralled with their predicament- especially if a screaming tot is added to the mix.

Furthermore, the differences between first class and economy have reflected the general and growing inequality in our society. And as they stretch the first class seats to give them more room, at more expense, they shrink the economy class to piss regular fliers off even more. The new plan being considered is to remove two restrooms in the rear of each economy cabin and jam in four more seats.

Meanwhile, on one website called Flyertalk, we learned from a fellow blogger just how close we are to class warfare in the sky. Evidently disgusted by the grubby conditions on his flight, this Robespierre of the unfriendly skies invoked the French Revolution and warned: If you annoy “the salt of the earth enough, the rank and file and what have you, sometimes you wind up beheaded.”

Careful there, Bud. You don't want to be classified as a terrorist under the Patriot Act. But seriously, it's actually a wonder there aren't more incidents given how the traveling public's comfort and even basic humanity is being gutted by the yen for airline profits. But maybe people are no longer to be surprised given how this model is ubiquitous in our society.

As for knee defenders,  these are not what a true "Robespierre of the unfriendly skies" resorts  to. Rather he understands that the true culprit is the airline and either he boycotts it, takes a train, or......finds a seat where he can be more comfortable. (Hint: Behind the bulkheads in Economy).

Yes, Flying Really Was Much Better in the 60s!

Flying in the near future: on 'Skyrider' seats!

Most people who take to the skies today-  post - 1980s massive de-regulation -  have no clue about how great getting on a jet used to be in this country. Crammed into typical economy class cabins with minimal leg room, smacked by the seat in front and barely any over head space, not to mention being dinged for everything from extra luggage to snacks, to even choice of seat (now), many believe this is how it's always been.

But if they saw how we traveled in the 60s they'd be livid. Wide aisles so you didn't careen into the push carts bearing drinks (on the way to the rest room), two wide seats on either side of the spacious aisle with plenty of leg room, and full decent meals that make even today's pay-to-eat offerings look like pig slop.  Indeed, traveling back then was more like taking business class today.

My favorite jaunt was between New Orleans and Miami, from 1966 through 1969, via National Airlines. The fare was a fixed 90 bucks, and the total trip took 90 minutes to cross over the Gulf of Mexico. There was no milling about, waiting at a "gate" to get on the plane. As soon as you arrived you showed your ticket then boarded.

Within ten minutes of being airborne the airline hostesses were ready to serve you any beverage desired along with a hot sandwich (for such a short trip full meals weren't available). That included: hot pastrami, corned beef, or just plain hamburgers. I can vouch that the quality would beat even most first class fare served these days.  The 1960s flight experience was perhaps most faithfully portrayed  in the short-lived 2012 TV series "Pan Am". (I only watched one episode but thought it was fairly accurate!)

In the 1960s class differentiation on flights was neither as extreme or emphasized as it is today. Yes, there was a smallish first class option but in general you had to be a real tool to use that when the regular seating was so comfortable (they didn't use the term "economy" because Cheeze Louise, it wasn't like taking a Greyhound bus back then - though it is like that today!) 

By the time you reached your destination you were refreshed and not frazzled after long waits, security searches, cramped leg room and other tribulations. In other words, you enjoyed the flight experience.

Yes, yes, I know, the current purveyors of flying box car sardine accommodations will assert flying is much safer now, with less fire prone seats, some better designs etc. that permits at least a decent chance of escape from a crash, such as we saw at San Francisco. That's a point, but I argue that had the regulation of airlines continued those improvements would still have been made and now, we'd have comfortable flights along with the new safety enhancements.

The main purpose of deregulation was for airlines to pile in more people and make more money. (And please don't tell me flights are cheaper now, because I can cite just as many examples showing how the prices of key flights are outrageous - depending on the cities involved: think $750 from COS to Atlanta!)

Yes, more people can travel today ....but what has that translated into? Well, I call it a "Greyhound of the skies". You're packed in just like you were in the old Greyhound buses of the past. Candy and nut wrappers strewn all about by the end of the flight, trying to squeeze out of your seat to use the loo, and then loads of cranky passengers not at all enthralled with their predicament- especially if a screaming tot is added to the mix.

Furthermore, the differences between first class and economy have reflected the general and growing inequality in our society. And as they stretch the first class seats to give them more room, at more expense, they shrink the economy class to piss regular fliers off even more. The new plan being considered is to remove two restrooms in the rear of each economy cabin and jam in four more seats.

The next step after that? Probably to replace current seating with 'Skyrider' seats so people can feel like they're on a bicycle seat while traveling 4 hours from NYC to San Francisco.  Meanwhile, on one website called Flyertalk, we learned from a fellow blogger just how close we are to class warfare in the sky. Evidently disgusted by the grubby conditions on his flight, this Robespierre of the unfriendly skies invoked the French Revolution and warned: If you annoy “the salt of the earth enough, the rank and file and what have you, sometimes you wind up beheaded.”

Hmmmmm...better be careful there, son, lest the Patriot Act and its NSA patronizers label you a "terrorist"