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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

15+ hours in the air. In economy. That isn't healthy. I'm wondering if we eventually get to the point that health agencies speak up, that there is too much risk in having people sit in tiny chairs for such periods.

When I was a kid I did lots of 8+ hour flights (YVR-London, London-middle east). Seats were bigger then. Now I see old people sitting in tiny seats and wonder how many will leave the flight with a DVT injury? How many will be in hospital with flu the next day? If sitting is the new smoking, these flights are like sleeping inside a chimney.

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People have spoken with their wallets. The legacy carriers that traditionally had larger seats and more varied classes of service were eaten alive by budget carriers on Price.

I have done SFO-DEL 3 times in last 6 months and on all 6 journeys, the plane was completely full - only one or two seats empty in economy. Half of the in-seat entertainment was broken (bad remotes/hung screens/broken USB ports) still people preferred a 15 hour journey over a connection, so I can attest to this first-hand

I've never in my life seen a human-sized seat in Coach (in terms of width). I'd love to speak with my wallet for 2x2 seating on narrowbodies, but the asking price isn't reasonable -- typically 5x the price for business class, for less than double the space.

I still can't believe we don't have a "get your own armrest class" option with minimal additional legroom for (say) 50-75% extra cost.

Orders of magnitude increases in cost will never be acceptable to the average person, or even the spending-their-own-money 5%.

I travel for a profitable business, and there's no way in hell they're paying 5x extra for us plebes to have a little extra comfort. I imagine only executives and the consultant class get away with it.

I find Delta's Comfort+, Virgin's Premium Economy, and JetBlue's EvenMoreSpace to be quite a good compromise of price vs space. None are "private arm rest", but all are quite good fore and aft and my weight in lbs nearly overflows a uint8 and I'm comfortable side-to-side.

Comfort+ seems to be $99/way on trans-Atlantic and JetBlue's are $30-60 per leg on most flights.

I'm a (low) executive who probably could fly business class more (in the sense that our travel policy doesn't prevent it), but I choose not to as it's not a good use of shareholder funds. I only do it if it's <~$200 more or if I'm flying and going directly from the airport into a critical meeting. Routine travel and I'm fine in coach.

Can confirm, Delta's Comfort+ is "good enough" and depending on the aircraft United's EconomyPlus can be good enough, although I feel really sorry for the people who pay extra for EconomyPlus on those ERJ's. LOL. What a rip off.

Source: 6'3" @ 230lbs. and I fly every week

I'd also recommend avoiding the 6-across RJ-85s. I felt like I was wearing the airplane; fortunately, it was a short leg intra-EU.

6'5" @ 230 EconomyPlus on an ERJ gets you access to the bulkhead rows. Just wrapped 40 weeks of IAH-DSM on ancient ERJ's still sporting Continental cabin parts.

A lie flat biz seat/pod, on a long haul flight, generally takes up well more than double the space as an econo seat, no?

"get your own armrest with minimal additional legroom" does exist, on many carriers. It's called Premium Economy.

Yeah, have absolutely no need for a lie flat bed. Just "your own armrest" which I haven't really seen on many carriers, at least not domestic. I'm trying to swing Premium Economy on Lufthansa which looks nice, except I made the mistake of booking through United, so neither airline will take my money for an upgrade. sigh. Air NZ also has a good premium economy. That's all I ask. Sadly most domestic carriers only offer more legroom, which I don't much care about.

> Now I see old people sitting in tiny seats and wonder how many will leave the flight with a DVT injury?

I think especially old people should already know to wear compression socks when sitting for long times. And the airlines AFAIK also hint people to use them, even for short flights.

In fact Air India is one of the most generous in terms of legroom and seat width (An artefact of it being a govt owned entity). They have been slow to adopt the 10 seat across(in Y) that has become standard with the 777. Try flying in EK or UA and see the difference. Trading seat comfort to entertainment choice (among other factors) is an individual choice.

I regularly fly this route and also SFO<->NYC every other week, and often in economy as a result of last minute bookings.

You have some big claims without any backing. As from my experience, the only issue is fatigue and discomfort through the flight. Air India actually has some really good seat pitch on the 773s

I do multiple 12/13 hour flights per year. It's not a big deal once you get used to it. The hardest part is just preparing yourself to be able to shut down properly. We spend too much time constantly stimulated that sitting still for a while freaks people out.

I find there is a benefit to being alone with your thoughts for half a day or so, in a physically inactive state. How many people honestly ever spend that time 'switched off'.

It's all in how you approach it really, glass half full/empty

Is there a rule that says you must remain seated for the entire duration of a 15 HR flight?

What is your suggested alternative.. force every plane to land half way and take a coffee break? Also, aren't they the same planes and seats as decades ago? We don't replace planes very often, neither do they just sneak in another seat on every row.

I don't think they are the same seats - they get replaced - but they are pretty much the same size. Legroom, on the other hand, has definitely decreased.

Actually newer seats have increased legroom by making the seats thinner. Of course airlines have moved them closer together.

(1) Yes. I could see maximum times for flights if one could draw a link between long flights and poor health outcomes.

Speaking of which...

"One person in 4,600 experiences a symptomatic VTE in a month following a flight of four hours or longer, and only a minority of those are serious."

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20120207/New-guidelines-for...

(2) The airframes aren't new. but the seating arrangements sure are. And modern tech, big-data, means far more flights are booked solid. When I was a kid flying london-vancouver it wasn't unusual to see an entire row empty. That's not a thing anymore.

As for (2), exactly. Even at the start of the millennium I'd fly LAX-Melbourne and often the Sydney-Melbourne leg was a 747 with a dozen passengers on it (because there was also a non-stop that would routinely be half full).

The one time I ever flew LAX->Sydney many years ago (with my parents) - we (a family of four) had the center group of seats in a 747 for that trip.

So did the guy behind us.

I'm still jealous that he had the whole thing to himself, 20 years later.

This year I got the full row (3+4+3 seats I think?) in SFO->FRA. I was not the only one, basically everyone near me had a row each. at least a segment of a row each.

I didn't really go to the center row though; I was more comfortable resting on the window and keeping my legs on the seats -- can use a laptop comfortably, and also sleep.

When I was a kid flying london-vancouver it wasn't unusual to see an entire row empty. That's not a thing anymore.

I've been on domestic U. S. flights that have had multiple rows empty, to the point that my rough math said the airline couldn't have been making a profit on that flight. About a quarter of the time I'd get a row to myself. Those days are long gone, of course. Now I can't even get an exit row months in advance even if I want to pay for it.

Airplanes need to be moved around. Maybe one leg is partially empty because the plane needed to be somewhere for a D check.

When I was a dispatcher for a very small regional carrier, we might cancel a flight that was too empty. More often we'd have to fly a nearly empty or empty flight so that the plane would be where it needed to be for the next day.

IIRC the government pays airlines to have sometimes-unprofitable flights from low volume airports. Or at least some governments do.

The cabin is updated more often than the plane itself. Also chairs change in order to become lighter and take less space. This allows for more rows (depending on airplane model and airline)

Certifying authorities set the limits on how many people you can put on the airplane. The JAA (essentially EU version of FAA) had a limit that was (IIRC) 5 fewer than the FAA because during their testing of evacuation that was all they could get out within the time limit.

Too late for an edit: I forgot to name the airframe. This was the next-gen 737 (-7/8/900).

Oh yes they do: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023043841045791419...

That's a comparison of various classes and other types of seating, not the same seats from some time ago.

EDIT: From within the article,

Early jet planes like Boeing's 707 had 17-inch seats, a dimension based on the width of a U.S. Air Force pilot's hips, says Airbus marketing chief Chris Emerson. That standard for long-haul flying increased to 18-inches in the 1970s and 1980s with the 747 jumbo and the first Airbus jets. It widened to 18.5 inches with the Boeing 777 in the 1990s and A380 superjumbo[1] in the 2000s. Now, cost-conscious airlines are moving to lighter 17-inch-wide seats on their Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliners and 18-inch seats for A350s.

[1] sic, A380 was only a concept at that point.

Boeing is saying that airlines are ordering more planes with more cramped economy seating than they were before, even though they're the same models of plane.

"For almost 20 years, the standard setup in the back of a Boeing 777 was nine seats per row. But last year, nearly 70% of its biggest version of the plane were delivered with 10-abreast seating, up from just 15% in 2010."

So over five years, airlines were ordering more and more of these especially cramped 777s than before, which means the same class and the same model of plane has narrower seats and aisles so they can cram in one extra person in each row.

This is a discussion on new planes, but I would be surprised if airlines weren't moving to the new configuration on older planes as well whenever they do an upgrade or refurbish (or use those planes on lower-demand routes where the lower capacity doesn't impact the actual number of seats sold).

> Also, aren't they the same planes and seats as decades ago?

> Early jet planes like Boeing's 707 had 17-inch seats

> Now, cost-conscious airlines are moving to lighter 17-inch-wide seats on their Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliners and 18-inch seats for A350s.

If anything, we're just going back to the older seat width after enjoying a few extra inches on the non-low cost carriers; Sure they're adding more rows but the seats themselves are just as wide (if not more) than what they were decades ago.

Seats and galleys are BFE (buyer furnished equipment), so you can't blame Boeing/Airbus for cramped seating.

Many airlines offer a Premium Economy product which offers wide seats and more legroom (think domestic First Class). They don't tend to sell well; Turkish Airlines is in fact removing them from their aircraft [0] — and many major airlines don't even have a Premium Economy cabin (United, Delta, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, et al).

Most people just aren't willing to pay for wider, more spacious seats.

[0] https://www.runwaygirlnetwork.com/2016/05/23/losing-comfort-...

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