World’s Most Cramped Airline Seat to Launch Next Week | Hacker News Reader

World’s Most Cramped Airline Seat to Launch Next Week

wired.com

38 pointsalexandros35 comments

I can't imagine the government authorities would allow this for at least two reasons:

1. safety. What if the jet needs to be evacuated because of an emergency and you're in a window seat and there is a very portly person in the middle seat who happens to be unconscious? Your normal exit path would be blocked and you can't easily climb over the seat in front of you.

2. children and infants: How would a five year old sit in one of these contraptions? How would you take a baby on board?

You can put the babies in little boxes at the front of the plane. At this rate, it will soon be a reasonable idea!

More to the point:

Current airliner passenger loads are determined by a mandatory requirement to be able to evacuate the passengers from the hull within a set period.

Cram in extra seats, and you're up against the evacuation limit, which is a hard limit dictated by the number of bodies and the number of doors in the fuselage.

To work around it, you'd have to cut holes in the fuselage for additional emergency exits and then recertify the aircraft, which means an airline wanting to use these seats will need to buy new airliners certified to carry more passengers. But this higher density seating only makes sense for short haul ultra-low-cost tickets, which are less profitable, ergo ...

(And then there's the issue of weight. Passengers weigh, say, 75Kg on average, including clothing. They fly with luggage, another 5-25Kg. A Boeing 737-800 currently has a limit of 189 passengers and a payload of roughly 40,000kg, of which up to 26,000kg is fuel: put more than 189 passengers (18,900Kg by my BOTE estimate above) and you're going to be squeezing right up against Maximum Take-Off Weight unless you reduce the maximum fuel load. Even if there's room in the hull, you're going to have to redesign a lot more than the seats and the emergency exits ...)

An alternative option would be to cram the economy class into a smaller space, so they can have more space for premium economy, business and first class seats. That would be useful for routes between London and New York where there's a big demand for business class seats.

No matter what your age, financial status, or physical stature/condition, I really find it hard to imagine anyone riding a saddle with a seatbelt on an already-torturous-in-economy transcontinental flight.

Exit in 90sec tests are easy to rig. You either use USAF cadets and lots of practice until you can do it once (Boeing) or accept a couple of broken legs (Airbus)

Payload probably isn't a problem - this would be used on 90min commuter hops where a 737 doesn't need to carry it's full 5000nm range fuel load.

If you put the seats facing backwards they would probably be safer than regular seats where people either submarine out of the lap belts or smash their face in the seat back in front of them.

3. Tall people like me who simply cannot fit in "normal" economy class. Every trip is a hassle trying to convince some deranged check-in drone that the script he/she is following to stone-wall is stupid and wrong.

The authorities would certainly conduct a focus group review with a random sampling of the population before even considering introducing a plane to North America with these seats in it. Getting a plane off the ground would suddenly take twice as long due to realizing some passengers will not be able to physically fit in a seat due to varying sizes, and not knowing this before the ticket was purchased. I can't imagine how much breathing room your diaphragm has to move with that folding tray.

If airlines are run anything like public sector, certainly there must be far more effective ways of reducing costs instead of cutting into the bone.

> Is it one step closer to just drugging us and piling us onto shelves like suitcases, or a legitimate next-step for cheap air-travel?

I think I'd rather be knocked out.

Actually that would really not be too bad . . . unless you need to get off the plane early for any reason.

If the tickets are cheap enough, people will use these seats. The question is, how much cheaper does this make tickets?

Edit: Made some very rough estimates Flight from Chicago to New York with United is $178, (found on Expedia). There are 112 economy seats = $19,936. Flights aren't going to be full to capacity but let's just assume for now. Assume that United replace it's entire economy section of the flight with these seats.The economy section is 617" long. 617/23 = 27 rows of seats * 6 seats/row - 2 emergency exits = 160 seats.

$19,936/160 = $124.60

So if you replaced the entire economy cabin with these seats, a flight from NY to Chicago would go from $178 to $124.60. That's a pretty significant price cut.

Your math assumes that there is no per traveler cost to the airline, which seems unlikely. Extra people increase the weight (lowering fuel efficiency), slow down boarding times, drink extra soda, etc.

This is beyond ridiculous.

I'm also six foot three but I also happen to weigh in around 130kg and I would genuinely prefer to stand than use these seats.

Those afflicted with arthritis, parents with infants and almost anyone with a physical disablility will struggle massively. I appreciate it's a concept at the moment but Ryanair will bend over backwards to get something like this approved. They are already floating the idea of standing room only.

Of course people with disabilities or special needs need to buy the ticket that works for them. My son sometimes has to buy a 1st class ticket for himself and his cello - its pointless to whine about how economy class should be bigger to accomodate his needs.

Carrying a large musical instrument and being afflicted with a physical disability are poles appart.

Agreed, airlines shouldn't increase space to accomodate his cello but I see no valid argument justifying making an MS sufferer pay more because they would struggle to support themselves in these seats.

How about a paraplegic?

Come on, it sucks to be sick, but every airline seat is not going to be quipped with life support systems.

Out of context again Joe.

I'm not advocating that airlines should incorporate ridiculous measures to accomodate all passengers, I am simply stating that these new seats will prevent a significant amount of people who can currently travel in economy from doing so in future.

The article says that this will be a new class, below economy, called "cabin class." If that's the case, everyone who used to travel in economy could continue to do so.

If they're looking to reduce space, they should have us lie down horizontally. I don't think I would mind less space if I could lie down the whole time.

Sweet, get ready to sell chafing relief products in the terminal.

I'd rather fly standing up!

I actually would rather stand up for most of the time on long flights. Share and rotate a sleeping space with other passengers.

For that matter, why not just pile sleeping slots on top of each others bunk bed style.

Those seats look horrible for leg circulation.

Ryanair and its plans for £5 standing only tickets:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7864921/Ryanair...

Does anyone remember when Ryanair were an airline, not a punchline?

I flew with them once, because they went from an airport much closer to me than the big carriers like BA. I'm not a fan of flying generally, but this was such an unpleasant experience that if I ever make the same trip again, I will surely fly from a different airport with a different carrier even if it means a significantly longer journey from home to airport.

I've flown with Ryanair a few times between the UK (Prestwick) and Sweden - I thought it was perfectly OK.

However, their website is an abomination.

My only real problem with Ryanair is no one wants to compete with them. They are a bit like a virus. Once fully established in an airport, their competitors scale down and move away. Worse still, if they decide to move on themselves because the airport starts charging normal rates, that airport is then in a poor position.

As noted in the article, the legality of such a plan is questionable on safety grounds. I suspect a plan for tranquilizing and shelving passengers for the journey would fly further (and be a lot safer).

There's a website for that :

http://seatguru.com

After being through the Lima to Amsterdam wringer with half of the front seats floor occupied by the entertainment box (literally) I appreciate a website that gives me detailed seat layouts before buying a ticket.

Yet another reason why the airline industry needs to be re-regulated to stop the ongoing race to the bottom in customer service.

I think the airlines might have just found my point where comfort becomes more point than price

Well at least she seems to be enjoying the turblence!

I wonder about thrombosis...

For short haul flights deep vein thrombosis shouldn't be an issue, and the awkward position would probably better for circulation. Passenger evacuation and customer rejection are bigger obstacles to come.

I've never said this of a fellow startup, but I hope in earnest that they fail, not out of contempt, but because I don't want ever to have to sit in a seat like that.

Note: "below economy" class is a terrible idea for us, because it means that those seats will cost current coach prices, and what we call coach will become business class. (This has happened before; business now is what coach was in 1990.)

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