Incredible shrinking airline seat

I'm 6'4" and 280lbs- I'd like more length AND width so I pony up the extra $80-150 for whatever version of the economy plus exists on that carrier. I've also found that certain carrier's regular ol' economy are just fine. Delta, Southwest and Alaska routes with the newer generation of plane cabins fit me perfectly adequately. My knees are right up to the seat back in front of me but not IN the seat back in front of me.

I don't bargain shop for my flights at all beside sanity checking the route prices. I'll pretty much do anything to avoid connections, and I refuse to fly United or any budget airline besides Southwest, regardless of price.

I use Alaska as much as possible (live on the west coast), and Delta when I'm going to the east coast or to Europe (they partner with KLM).

I've got status on both so I get all kinds of perks, and the service on Alaska, Delta, and Southwest are about as good as you're going to get in the US (at least once you get some status).

I'll reluctantly fly American if they're the only suitable option for my schedule or are insanely cheaper, but I find that my three first choices generally cover the day sufficiently enough to make it work.

I'm not fond of the SWA cattle call, but I've found their seats to be decently sized, their staff to be human and helpful within their power, and their focus on not nickel and diming is a breathe of fresh air.

True, but there is generally a big increase in price. Premium Economy is generally twice the price of Economy. Regulations to push up the Economy seat pitch to a safe level would increase prices for Economy tickets, but given the small size difference, the price increase should be rather modest.

Virgin is quite good; Southwest is terrible. They're known for cost, not for service. Their lack of assigned seating is one of many manifestations of that, and it's the primary reason I never fly Southwest.

I think airline travel provides one of the clearest examples of the big different between what people say they want (legroom, good quality food, friendly service), and what they will actually want / will pay for (cheap seats).

Let's not forget, premium economy, business class, first class, private jets are all available in this market for people that actually want large and comfortable seats and are willing to pay more for it.

If instead I could get elbow room and still have something to read, that might be worthwhile.

Wait, so because occasionally there are routes with excess capacity this means there is sufficient competition? You seem to have confused the concept of demand competition for some reason. They are orthogonal although related concepts. Airlines having "fire sales" on fares is also not very common. Airlines have adopted a practice called "capacity discipline" which is industry speak for limiting both the number of seats and flights to a destination so as to increase the ticket price[1].

Also it doesn't seem like you are at all aware of the amount of consolidation that has gone on in the industry in the last decade, four major airlines control 80% of the market[2]. Is that your idea of sufficient competition? And there are also many instance where one or more of those 4 don't actually have a direct flight option to your particular destination.

>"Consumers could be flying airlines like Southwest and Virgin. The fact that they instead choose to fly on airlines like Frontier and Spirit shows that they don't actually care to spend the extra money to have reasonable seats or service."

What a bunch of nonsense straw man BS this claim is - because there is a segment of the market that selects predominantly on price means that all consumers don't care? That is beyond absurd.

>"I especially have to scoff at tech workers, who don't lack the money to make their travel experience more pleasant, but still take redeyes to save money and then complain about how much they hate travelling."

Most people I know take red eyes when there is no other choice, examples are an interview or late meeting on the opposite coast. It's also really odd that you believe that everyone who is a "tech worker" is by definition well off financially. There is no shortage of "tech workers" who are between jobs, starting a company and don't yet have income, free lancers, recent grads with student loan debt etc. Odder still is that fact that you have made blanket assumption about people based on their industry and then have chosen to "scoff" at them based on own your own ridiculous assumption.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/business/airline-discipli...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/business/energy-environme...

At some point, ya gotta have a reasonable amount of faith and let'em learn to fish. There are, of course, exceptions. Safety comes to mind.

Also, if the government has to spend time and energy poking into the minor and the minutiae there won't be anything left for the big real problems that actually require gov intervention. Is that not what we see today? A gov too often bogged down in bullshit. We debated the size of gov when we should focus on role and quality. Geez. We can't even get the scope of the discussion correct.

Gov, like so many things, is a limited resource. We should use it sparingly and wisely. My personal sense is that is not the case. We throw it at everything. Even though it isn't working out well :(

Google seems to have a good intermediate policy where you can keep money you save on one trip and use it for upgrades on future travel.

Or, in absolute terms - 2 rows = 12 seats, so if you imagine $100 fares, with a few flights per day, you could easily be looking at 5 or 10 thousand dollars a plane per day.

p.s. less passengers also means less fuel, less employees (to some extent), etc. That said, the number of flights, especially on certain routes, has to be limited. At that point the only way up and out is to maximize bodies on the plane. Ya can't add more flights.

I have to fly long haul in economy with work (who won't pay for anything else), so my choice is either several hours of pain and discomfort, or to pay a large sum to upgrade myself - if the fare is even upgradable. Bring on the regulation!

I hope that was an intentional pun. Leg room is vanishingly small these days, but I'm not so sure it's entirely gone. ;)

Eh... no. Yes, smoking was annoying and unpleasant for a lot of people, but 2nd hand smoke is absolutely a safety issue.

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