Hacker News Reader

Comment by veritas3241 | Hacker News Reader

Having just done a close to 20 hour flight (sort of - 6 hours CPT to ADD, just enough time to go to another plane, 14 hours ADD to IAD via a technical stop in Dublin), I've got to say just how absolutely miserable it is to fly for a long period of time on a full flight. Particularly if you're taller than 6'2" (~1.9m) and you have broader shoulders, you're going to be massively uncomfortable.

Yeah, I want a cheap flight, but if there was a small perk where I could physically lie flat for ~15 minutes at some point during the flight, I would pay for that. I haven't been able to really deload my spine for pushing 48 hours (aside from some psuedo-yoga stretching while standing) due to further connections and layovers and it sucks.

International flight is an amazing, painful miracle of science and technology. Maybe SpaceX's BFR will make it better :-) But I highly doubt we'll ever see a reasonably priced long-haul flight with a gym available to us peasants.

View on HN

> I've got to say just how absolutely miserable it is to fly for a long period of time on a full flight.

(I have similar height and shoulder issues.) It may not seem like it at the back (economy class) but different aircraft are different, and sometimes airlines also lay them out differently from each other. For example look at the Boeing 777 initially released in 1995. At the time economy was laid out 3-3-3. Nowadays most airlines use 3-4-3. That is the difference between a 19 inch wide seat on Singapore Airlines, and a 17 inch wide seat on Emirates.

The aircraft to watch out for the most is the Boeing 787. With one minor exception, they all have one more seat in each economy class row than Boeing originally intended. In general the comment from those of above average height having been on one, is that they will never set foot in a 787 again! The Airbus A350 should be mostly alright on most carriers, but you will need to double check.

A weak rule of thumb is to favour Airbus over Boeing, as their cabin widths and historical choices have tended to result in wider seats in Airbus aircraft. In the US there are efforts to get regulation of seat sizing (under the guise of "safety"), and airlines are trying various things. But someone in the US who is ~1.9m is in the 95th height percentile. It is hard for airlines to cater for that last 5% without a negative economic impact.

> It is hard for airlines to cater for that last 5% without a negative economic impact.

If this were any other industry, doing things that obviously cause harm to 5% of customers would be considered unlawful discrimination or assault.

If that was the case they'd just put in height maximums for economy tickets.

Afaik height isn't a protected class. Amusement parks have been "discriminating" against very short and very tall people forever.

If you're talking about physical injury, then I don't think it would be legal for any 5% of your customers. Pretty sure injuring people is illegal regardless of protected class status.

That's exactly why tall and short people aren't allowed on amusement park rides.

Tall people make more money. Use it to buy a better seat.

Eh, speaking as a very small man (5'2"), come on, there are many low-earning huge people, and better-than-economy seats can be bizarrely expensive.

(I will admit that I peak at "mild" empathy for this problem. But even mild empathy gets me to the response above.)

Better seats are usually WAY more expensive than the slight earnings statistic for height. At 6’5”, I’ll do the Early Bird check-in (out of my own pocket) on SWA, or the economy plus on United regional jets. I cannot physically get my knees in a standard regional jet seat.

The only relief for tight airline seats is a few drinks to dull the misery.

That sucks man. I'm 6'2", my knees almost hit. When I first sat in the new thin seats, I extended my leg straight down the aisle. My foot reached well in front of the seat pan ahead of me. It was crushing to see that visual evidence of just how tight it was.

The worst part for me is my shins are long enough my knees & thighs are elevated off the seat, causing the blood to pool. I have wondered if economy plus allows enough leg extension to alleviate that problem.

The economy plus leaves room between my knees and seat. On one of the regional jets, where the seating columns shift slightly, there is a single economy plus seat with a huge amount of leg room, and you can stretch them out.

Source?

http://time.com/money/4252311/income-discrimination-short-me...

There's an unexplained but significant correlation between height and IQ [1] which in turn successfully predicts a correlation with higher incomes. Doesn't mean it's causal, but the existence of such correlation is not in question.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_and_intelligence

Anecdotal, but, I'm a pretty tall guy (for American standards) at 6' something, and most of my bosses and senior management were taller than me.

I'm 6' something, and most of my bosses and senior management are not taller than me.

The higher cabin pressure of the 787 is amazing, though. I suppose if you're extra-tall it makes sense to avoid (or at least to check the seat configuration), but otherwise they're lovely aircraft.

I've taken a couple of flights on the 787 and I would swear it makes a big difference. (Or am I just "placebo effect"ing myself?)

Its definitely a big difference. On a 12 hour flight to south america it was far more comfortable than any other similarly long flight I have taken.

Its a big difference, basically the same as being at Lake Tahoe vs. Mammoth Lakes (if you happen to have been to these mountain places in California).

The higher cabin pressure is happening on all recent (large) aircraft designs. It is a result of using more composite materials and humidity control. None of that matters when the seat is smaller than you are though!

I was really excited for 787s at Air Canada, and soon discovered over multiple trips that the seat back is too thin and light.

If the person behind me puts the provided a water bottle in the seat pocket in front of them, as they do almost every flight, it pokes, pushes, and rubs my back enough that I wake up.

I totally noticed this same thing a couple of days ago! Damn!

I was rerouted and downgraded to a KLM economy flight overnight last year, on an old 747. Same problem with the seat.

The solution is easy, don't fly in economy.

Not-economy is often twice as expensive though. If it's for leisure then sure, you could opt to go somewhere else or keep saving for a more expensive flight, but if it's for business your employer probably doesn't want to spend twice as much.

Not-economy is often twice as expensive though.

For short haul and domestic flights. For trans-atlantic flights it's often 3-5 times as expensive.

And takes up 3-5 times as much room.

The solution is easy, don't fly in economy.

Bloody poor people. They should be happy we let them our airplanes at all.

$400 is an annual wage for much of the world. if you can fly in a plane you are rich, it's just a question of how rich you are.

In the 1970s a transatlantic return was about $3000 in today's money. You can get a business class bed for that now. If you could afford to travel in economy in 1970, you can do it in business today, and business today is far above first class in those days.

If you work for a company that insists on flying you in economy and you don't like it, it's time to move job.

EU should make it mandatory for airlines to disclose the details of seating arrangement. How much leg room, width etc.

This would allow consumers to make educated choices on the market

It's not a secret. You can look up details like these on SeatGuru and other sites.

This should be better than a legislated solution. If it was regulated, airlines would focus on gaming the measurement process to provide the biggest number possible, even if at the cost of actual passenger comfort.

Make passengers with extra circumference and weight pay more.

I understand that this is very problematic on several fronts, but it would follow quite naturally from the way that children seats cost less and (on lap) toddlers travel almost for free.

I'm big and weigh more than average - and seat width has never been a problem.

My problem is the length of my thighs. I can't really put them straight, they act as natural recline blockers. That's the nasty part - it's not about being comfortable, I have paid for extra leg room. I just demand that the damn planes be large enough to sit without pain. I don't demand comfort.

If you don't fit in the seat you'll most likely have to pay for an additional ticket anyway. Of course there are cases where the "big guy" just slightly overflows over the neighbors and in that case they're SOL.

But tickets should be sold per sit per weight. And that should include the passenger and all the luggage. So a 50Kg person travelling with 5Kg of luggage shouldn't pay the same as a 150Kg person travelling with 40Kg of luggage. One should pay for 1 seat/55Kg, the other for 1-2 seats/190Kg.

Airlines only care about the number of sits and total weight so the pricing should be done accordingly. And before anyone screams discrimination, I physically can't fit in most airplane seats (or can, but in a contortionist style not fit for more than a few minutes of usage). I have to pay for upgrades or extra leg room at every flight. I'm sure nobody thinks discrimination in my case.

It's the same with leaning back the sit where it takes space from a seat you paid and it turns a usable seat into an unusable one. Which is why many times I prefer to fly low cost and pay for extra leg room then to go for "premium" airlines and have to be squashed in my seat because I risk being greeted by airport security after landing if I make a fuss.

If you're tall and skinny you really draw the short straw of air travel. You still get to pay full price but without actually fitting in most places in the plane. Nobody feels any moral obligation to care and no chances of losing height in the gym.

Your pay by weight pricing sounds fair, but in practise it would be pointless if fair. The vast majority of weight of a plane is not the passengers, and certainly not the variance of weight amongst the passengers.

A 777-300ER is 170,000kg empty. Divide that equally by 350 passengers and you get 485kg per passenger. We'll compare a 75 vs 100kg passenger which brings the totals to 560 and 585kg. ie a 33% passenger weight increase only makes a 4% total weight change. Note that these are best case numbers and using real world ones is a heavier weight to allocate, and even more trivial weight change per passenger.

Except you’re forgetting about fuel.

350k kg max take off weight -170k Kg empty weight -145k kg max fuel = 35k kg usable weight @ max fuel

35k kg / 350 pax = 100kg/pax which means passenger weight is far from trivial

I'm not forgetting about fuel, and gave the most optimistic numbers I could. Weight for premium passengers (eg bigger more complex seats, more floor space, bigger toilets, more galley space, equipment and food/drink) should be allocated to them, not shared evenly. I also don't think it is fair to allocate items like duty free carts, or what belly cargo is using. At the end of the day if you do a more realistic and fair allocation (~half the plane is not used by economy passengers), especially what people have control over (I didn't ask for duty free, dead heading crew, alcohol etc) then the weight differences between economy passengers still are not significant compared to the big picture.

Your example is not entirely appropriate because first you're comparing 2 classes of paying customers: the ones that paid a lot, and the ones that paid a little. Then you compare a service that's provided for all passengers equally, like the duty free.

My point was being overweight is free, being "overheight" or an invalid will cost you every time. I have to pay a lot more to get the same level of (dis)comfort that everyone else gets for free.

It's the kind of discrimination that people just let slide but it's discrimination nonetheless.

i think we are talking past each other - my point is that passenger wight vs total weight is not a very relevant metric - you need to think about in the context of payload [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Takeoff_weight_diagr...] which can be as little as ~10% of MTOW

You know what's even lighter than passengers? Their luggage. And yet you get to pay steep premiums for going over the usual 23-32Kg limit. If you're curious what overcharge we're talking about see here [0].

This puts in context what kind of deal a 150Kg person gets compared to a 50Kg person. They pay the same price, one gets to carry 100Kg of extra weight. And again, this is a treatment that is only extended to overweight people. A very tall person or an invalid get squat in terms of "good deals". It's only discrimination when we're talking about extra kilograms.

Weight on an airplane is always a major consideration. But even if it weren't, fairness doesn't always have to come attached to profit.

[0] https://www.skyscanner.net/news/tips/check-in-luggage-size-a...

> steep premiums for going over the usual 23-32Kg limit

That means oversize or special handling due to size or weight.

Also most air freight goes in the belly of passenger planes - more than goes in dedicated freighter aircraft. Your luggage is competing with that space. In addition it costs more money to handle luggage vs not handling it all.

That simply means slightly heavier luggage that gets over-charged by the Kg once you go over a weight that's still a fraction of the passenger. So a 10% increase in the weight of a 23Kg bag gets charged $50. A 200% increase in the weight of a passenger is on the house.

Almost everything carried by planes - freight or fuel - gets charged by size and weight. The only thing that gets charged exclusively per seat is the passenger. For every passenger that weight 50Kg a plane can carry 100Kg of additional cargo compared to a 150Kg passenger. An increase in average passenger weight of 20Kg for a plane carrying 500 passengers means 10.000Kg less anything else it can carry or more fuel burnt. Both of these cost a lot of money.

Yet airlines are willing to carry the extra 100Kg for free probably because of the outcry coming from the millions of overweight people around the world screaming "discrimination!". Still they are not willing to give 1" of extra leg room for free or larger toilets although there's nothing one can do about it if they fall into these categories.

I think my point stands. The actual algorithm used to calculate is not important for the discussion as much as the concept: it's a fair way to charge for such a service that has hard limits for size and weight.

It’s not better, SG is helpful but sloppy and airlines have no problem swapping to a different plane without telling you until it’s too late to change plans.

It is troubling that the comment here which suggested oversized passengers could pay more is already flagged, when that profit motive is exactly what would result in larger, higher-priced seats.

It's stupidly uncomfortable for tall and broad people to fly, and while one user here in this thread commented about that: 'I would pay for a larger seat,' I'm making a guess they then downvoted the comment, 'make bigger passengers pay more.'

Besides India, I have had some of my worst trips inside the EU; particularly with Vueling (although Ryanair is a close second). In a lot of Vueling seats I do not physically fit and the staff just does not actually care. If I avoid Vueling and Ryanair, it is generally comfortable, but compared to a lot of Asia (outside India and probably more but I would not know) it’s pretty poor.

They don't care because Vueling and Ryanair are budget airlines, who optimize for the lowest cost - that is, you save money by being uncomfortable.

There are other budget airlines like Easyjet and Norwegian and they do care.

This sounds like it'd be better handled by the private sector having a decent flight aggregator with those details baked in? They're not secret.

As a 6'5 frequent flyer...I feel your pain. I generally do check seat widths before flying. That said, I much prefer Boeings over Airbus(but hey, anything beats Embraer). Maybe it's nostalgia, the 747 was amazing and had tons of room to get up and walk around. That said, even in the newer fleets I like Boeing, mainly because I physically don't fit in Airbus's excuse for a restroom.

It might have been true in the past. You are absolutely going to hate the restrooms in the 737MAX.

Embraer do regional (ie smaller ~75 seat range) aircraft. The 747 etc was amazing, but 20+ years ago airlines considered 60% load factor to be normal. (Load factor is what proportion of the seats are occupied.) Nowadays 85% is what they target. Before virtually everyone could get aisle and window seats - now not so much!

The restrooms are not a plane manufacturer thing. The changes happening are Airbus figuring out how to make them smaller. They have to be big enough for a disabled person, but Airbus figured out that you could have two smaller ones next to each that open together to meet the requirements. Galleys and restrooms don't make revenue, so everyone is figuring out how to make them smaller and free up room for more seats. You found one.

(under the guise of "safety")

There's no need for scare quotes here. There is a legitimate safety concern: airlines have packed their aircraft with so many seats that it's not possible, in an emergency, to evacuate safely and quickly. The usual certification procedure for a new type of aircraft calls for simulating an evacuation with half of the doors inoperable, and requires everyone out (literally out, not merely "queued up at a door waiting to get out") within 90 seconds from the order to evacuate.

And the argument is that while this is achievable in test conditions, the test conditions tend to involve cabin configurations less dense than what the airlines fly, which means the 90-second evacuation target cannot be met with the planes as they're actually flown. Enforcing changes to return to compliance with the 90-second evacuation does not require enacting any new seat-width or legroom regulations, which is why it's an attractive option for people who want to get something done ("enforce this existing thing" is easier than "draft and enact a new thing").

There are also concerns about survivability of high-density cabins, based on lack of room between rows; flight attendant seats are the place to look here, because they're designed to have a certain minimum amount of space available for a flight attendant's head to swing in the event of a sudden jerk of the body (as in a collision). The high-density passenger seating doesn't have this, and would almost certainly produce head and neck injuries in a real emergency due to everyone's heads smashing into seat backs.

Planes basically never crash, though. So legislating less dense cabins under the guise of safety, while tempting for those of us who would like slightly more expensive and less crowded flights, is at best intellectually dishonest and at worst a direct path to more overall transport deaths thanks to increased car use.

It's actually not the airlines who are being hypocritical here.

Let's not forget about the many deaths that typically occur in the traffic jams between Sydney and London.

Hey, since planes basically never crash, maybe they shouldn't have any safety equipment at all? I bet you could reduce weight a lot by just marking sitting positions on the bare floor in economy. And you could provide hand-hold straps every so often for turbulent bits (we're acknowledging those, right?).

Strangely, there are relatively few opportunities to shift transport modes for intercontinental travel, other than trivial cases like crossing from Europe to Asia across the Bosporus, which some people do as part of their daily commute. Claiming that you're going to reduce deaths by moving people in aircraft versus cars? Even if aircraft were 100% safe, you couldn't move enough people through the current commercial aviation system to make a noticeable dent.

(Fermi estimate: 800 million passenger tickets in the US (2015), 350 million people make an average of 2 ground vehicle trips per day, that's 700 million * 365 = 255 billion. If airplanes can carry 25% more people (and they can't) by perfect substitution for automobile trips, that would reduce it from 255 to 254 billion trips. 1/255 fewer deaths. That's best case, because the US already makes more plane trips per capita than any other country.)

The relevant number for this discussion is not how often planes crash, but rather how often they need an evacuation. That is much more frequent than crashes [1].

[1] http://avherald.com/h?search_term=evacuation&opt=0&dosearch=...

The evacuation test configuration is be the densest possible configuration - the aircraft will be certified to carry that many passengers based off this test.

For instance, the A380 evacuation test had 873 people get out in 90 seconds (https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2006/03/a3...), and I don’t think anyone flies a 800+ seat A380 today. I believe the densest A380 is the Emirates Regional configuration with 600 seats.

This is great info. Airlines should publicize and market on stuff like this more often but it’s generally not easy to find out stuff like this!

Seatguru has extensive details on every plane and major carrier flight (down to which 777 variant and how recently remodeled).

But... the 787 has higher air pressure so you don’t feel dry AF at the end of the flight. The carbon fiber body allows for higher cabin pressure - a life saver IMHO.

It's a huge difference maker. 16hr flight felt like a train ride.

Chiming in here-the 787 made LA to Sydney feel easier than Boston to LA.

But not as compared to the A350 or A380

How so if I may ask?

IMO - only flown the A380 a few times, but never felt turbulent (may just be my luck). A350 is quiet AF compared to the 787 (flew them back to back on a flight through Qatar)

One thing I do love about the 787 though is the big windows - tall people get a (edit: lol not 360) very good view around the aircraft if it's not too full.

A350 has best cabin pressure, then 787, then A380, but they're all pretty good, and they're all pretty quiet too, compared to older planes.

1.84 and the 3-3-3 787 is by far my least favourite long haul option.

Air New Zealand already offers the Skycouch, in which an additional portion of the seat folds up to make them wider and you can lay across all three seats: https://www.airnewzealand.com/economy-skycouch

I've flown on it once. It's not as nice as a real bed, you can't fully stretch out without sticking your legs into the aisle, but it's a heck of a lot nicer than trying to recline in a normal economy seat.

I don't know exactly how much it cost, since someone else had bought the tickets for me, and may have used frequent flyer benefits to offset the costs. I think you basically pay the cost of each extra seat, so it's not cheap, but cheaper than upgrading all the way to business class to get seats that recline all the way to flat. If you have someone you're comfortable sharing with, then you only pay for one extra seat for the two of you.

That is a brilliant idea especially for couples with children on long hauls.

Not many people will pay for business on their own dime (business class generally not worth the multiplier -- it's a captive market for consultants and the wealthy), but some might consider buying an extra seat an extra seat if the price is right.

I can't sleep on airplanes, primarily because I can't sleep while sitting up. Even totally exhausted, I'll fall asleep for 20 minutes at most, before something becomes painful and wakes me up.

It's completely miserable on a transpacific because I arrive so very exhausted.

Still, business is WILDLY more expensive. There's no intermediate step to paying several times more. Is actually sleeping worth a few hundred dollars to me? Yes. A few thousand? No.

Premium Economy is a thing now and I’ve become a die hard. Is business worth $5000 more? No. But I’ll spend $400 more for a person sized seat and better food.

Premium Economy doesn't really solve the problem of not being able to lay down -- I can't sleep well when sitting, even in a Premium Economy seat that has a bit more recline.

But in a lay-flat seat, I can easily sleep for 7 - 8 hours (though still need a couple glasses of wine to kick-start it since bedtime on the plane doesn't usually coincide with my body's clock)

BA has one of the densest business class seats in the business, yet it takes up twice as much space as premium economy and 4 times as much space as business.

A quick look on the Uk-singapore route shows business as 5 times the price as economy.

But business is roughly double the price of economy. Do you need to buy an extra seat at the same price, or is it just a small premium available when they think the plane will be underbooked?

It's usually at least 3-4x, not double. On some routes, it's even up to 10x.

Also, here as a couple, you might have this just for 50% more (booking 3 seats instead of 2; assuming price per seat is the same)

Yeah First class on Chicago to Bismarck might be 2x but JFK to Heathrow is an easy 10x

You just need to look for flight sales (like you would for an economy ticket).

Example:

JFK to FRA, business class, A380 lie flat: $1,996USD

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals/1894422-s...

That’s only a 2.3x multiple of the $875 economy fare.

Norwegian is ~$200 single New York - London

In theory, it's a good idea. In practice, it's barely big enough for a small child and a relatively small adult.

You still have to be somewhere around 5ft tall else your feet gonna stick out.

Also, let not forget Air NZ joke biz class...

That said I am keen for them to do 20hr flight direct to Europe. Somewhere like Istanbul, Poland or Finland seems feasible from what I researched.

I've just purchased this. For a 9 hour flight from Auckland to Honolulu, it's $230 USD additional per couple. Basically you're paying $230 for the extra seat, for more seat pitch, and for a leg rest that turns into a flat surface. It's really great!

Note: China Airlines also has these seats, branded "Family Couch".

I think the target price for the Skycouch seat is somewhat below retail for just buying a third seat, so in that respect it's a pretty good deal if you're already flying longhaul economy with a partner. I mean, I'd flat out pay the retail price to guarantee an empty third seat in a row, and Skycouch has other benefits. That said, while it's an improvement, nobody's going to have a relaxing time trying to have two people sleep lying down on that couch unless they're tiny, and the two people better be very comfortable with close contact.

In theory you can always just reserve and buy an empty seat next to you, but ticketing and check-in procedures are mildly trickier to guarantee that it'll stay empty. I've considered it for flying longhaul solo before but these days I'd generally rather just pay the premium for an upgrade rather than gamble with nonstandard ticketing arrangements.

Looks like these were cancelled -- https://www.china-airlines.com/us/en/fly/on-board/fleet/fami...

I don’t get why can’t we fold economy class seats into 3 layer bunks. It’s mostly air above, surely it’s possible to do some clever origami.

Fuck I would even sleep on a floor if it was allowed, but there are “reasons”.

I was wondering if you could still book ship passage places easily these days (without it being a cruise, which is another possibility for select routes), and came across someone talking about booking rooms for ~$100/day (including food) on cargo ships.[1] Seems like it takes ~7-10 days to do a transatlantic leg of a route, so it would definitely take a while (and it has very limited routes, so some flying or overland travel might also be required for many routes), but it might be an interesting way to take a vacation before or after a business trip.

1: https://matadornetwork.com/notebook/how-to-travel-by-cargo-s...

As a developer, if I had internet access (at least intermittently) I could work remotely during the transit and be productive.

Interesting thought

For developers in certain areas (SF for example), $100/day might be cheaper than (or on par with) local housing. With a good internet solution, that might be an interesting way to work and travel at the same time.

I remember hearing once about a company trying to turn an old cruise ship into a floating hotel off the coast of California. The idea was also to keep it in international waters so that visas and taxes were not a thing. I wonder what happened to that idea?

A few years ago at SFDC Dreamforce, a company actually did this - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/step-aboard-the-dreamboat-...

Thanks! The one I was thinking of was for non-us it workers to work close to the us. They even were going to fly out US residents for meeting on the boat.

That's blueseed - https://blueseed.com/ . They could never get the funding needed to make it happen.

Thanks! That was it!

Not the first person to think it. Cruise ships offer wifi packages and so it's possible.

http://tynan.com/cruisework

https://medium.com/@wouthermans/what-i-learned-when-i-quit-m...

If you go to cruisesheets.com you can sort cruises by price per day. I've seen transatlantic cruises at $30 a day (including food). That's actually somewhat tempting if I had work I could do without needing the internet more than once a day.

Check out cruisesheet.com

I think I'd prefer 20 hours of discomfort over 10 days of being in transit. Depends on the transit of course, if it's a cruise + vacation then I wouldn't mind so much.

Well, the way they market it on the site looked to be sort of like "chill, low-key cruise". I imagine if your idea of a vacation is to get to the beach and read a book most the time, it might be somewhat comparable.

Been there, done that (6'2, Australia <-> Europe, multiple times). I couldn't agree more. The fact that there is no way to fully stretch my legs while seated is driving me nuts on such long flights.

I get that they have to cramp in as many seats into a plane as they can in order to get the prices down to a point where normal people are willing to pay for a ticket. But it's really such a pain in the butt.

Would I pay double the price for a ticket to get a bed? Probably not: long distance flights are already expensive. And knowing how everything on planes is smaller than in real-life, I'm sure whatever they'd sell me as "a bed" would not really be accommodating either.

As a consequence, I now just avoid these long distance trips. A pity for one who loves to travel but on the upside, it's better for the environment anyway.

If you have a long trip with a connection, most airlines will charge you the same whether you get the earliest connection or get one a few days later. If you aren’t in a rush this is a good way to break it up, and travel to somewhere different.

Yes it costs more booking a hotel for a couple of nights, but it’s still probably going to be cheaper than upgrading to business class. You usually have to book it directly through their website (look for “multi city”) rather than through an agent.

When flying Auckland-Zurich we decided to delay the stop over in Dubai by 24h and used the time to sleep in a hotel. We went to bed at 10am and got up the next day at 7am. We had pizza delivered for a short midnight lunch in bed. It was perfect.

And surely a bed would be way more than double the price of an economy ticket, considering that business class is already often 5 times more expensive for long international flights.

Would depend a lot on the bed. If it was a narrow, double- or triple-stacked bunk, then it might not take up much more floor space than the equivalent number of economy seats.

What you're paying for in business class is the privilege of having a flat bed or a big comfy chair, on demand.

If you have the time, just add stops. With Skyscanner/Google flights, I am usually able to cut a lot off the price while seeing some nice places on my way to and from Aus to EU. It takes some puzzling, but flying from Aus is usually weirdly expensive and adding stops cuts the price (last time it more than halved it to stop on Bali for 2 days; what a punishment!). Philipines or Vietnam usually cut prices a lot too. Bangkok is another one but less these days. And it cuts up the journey; helps with physical issues when you are tall (and/or broad/large) as well as with the jetlag.

I've tried a few times to find routes to Europe, ex-Sydney where it's more than marginally cheaper.

I've never really had much luck.

Strange. There was a known way from London from/to Sydney via Philipines that was much cheaper a year ago. And I had luck with Denpasar and Colombo many times including this year.

> Been there, done that (6'2, Australia <-> Europe, multiple times). I couldn't agree more. The fact that there is no way to fully stretch my legs while seated is driving me nuts on such long flights.

Same boats for me exactly. My solution is just to get up and hang out in the aisle, or near the emergency exits whenever I feel like it. Sometimes I read standing up, I stretch, I even sit on the floor with my legs straight. I'm polite to the staff and other passengers, and I have never once had anyone tell me to stop what I'm doing.

It's great in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep. An hour of stretching makes a BIG difference on those 14 hour back-to-back flights.

And knowing how everything on planes is smaller than in real-life, I'm sure whatever they'd sell me as "a bed" would not really be accommodating either.

I'm over 6' tall. I've flown multiple different lie-flat products on long-haul flights (and will try out another one next month), and I've never been on one that was too small. I suspect because that type of premium-cabin seating is built with assumptions about the demographics of the customers (in other words, they assume the typical passenger in these seats will be male, and aim to support a range of typical male sizes).

> But I highly doubt we'll ever see a reasonably priced long-haul flight with a gym available to us peasants.

It's all relative. Suppose the cheapest flights were twice what they currently are. Let's say $350 transatlantic one way, or $2300 return on your flight from South Africa to the eastern US. Flights would still be affordable to the middle class, which despite your "peasants" wording actually makes up ~100% of cost-conscious flyers. We'd fly less often and complain - as we do now - that flying would be so much better if we had twice the space per person for the same price and spent some of that on gyms, creches and hot bunks.

But actually we live in that counterfactual! And it turns out we don't really want those amenities. Our collective expressed preference - and given the lack of variety across airlines, it must be almost unanimous - is to be squeezed tighter and get to fly intercontinental a bit more often.

That's the irony of it all. It seems like so many people complain about the comfort of airlines when in aggregate they put airlines that offered better amenities out of business due to slightly higher prices.

Before the internet became the standard for booking travel, travel agents were often used to book flights. They could persuade people to spend just a bit more (around $10-$20) to fly on airlines with better food and more space. It worked!

As soon as sorting by price became the standard it became a race to the bottom. Airlines are only responding to market demand. The fact is everyone want's a premium experience but when it comes time to pay they only want the absolute cheapest fare. The travel aspect of a trip is now considered a tolerated annoyance instead of part of the overall experience. The same thing is happening with hotels as they eliminate services to offer cheaper rooms with nothing else.

Do you value quality of quantity you need to ask yourself. Is it better to have fewer long trips or frequent short trips you need to ask yourself.

It's not that I want a terrible experience, it's that I can easily sort by price and I can't easily determine how comfortable a plane will be. Until a site allows me to sort by a weighted function of price and comfort it's just too much effort to book a flight by anything but price. Taking into account the various combinations of airports, dates, times, locations (I typically fly for leisure), optimizing is already a exponentially more difficult with each option even with a simple cost function, never mind one that I have to go to a separate website to look up for each and every possible flight.

I'm hoping the future is more like 5th Element's "stewardess pushing the button to put the passengers to sleep immediately".

That tech sounds scary - cause people to fall asleep with the press of a button - image walking up to a bank, pushing the button on your device to make everyone inside fall asleep, then walking away with the bank's cash...among other things.

OR - a "freedom fighter" making a political statement while onboard an airplane.

6’7” (202cm) and about to get on the 15h LA to Melbourne today, no exit row possible despite many attempts - pity me.

As a fellow tall person myself, I will pray for you lol.

I am close to 2m and also broad (my shoulders stick out quite a bit) and I could not do that. Usually in this case the person in front and/or beside me will start complaining to the staff and they will relocate me. I have been put in premium and swapped with people in exit seats because I physically do not sit and every movement bothers people around me.

Not to be rude, but you're saying you're 2m/6.5 feet wide?

No :) I am almost 2m tall and not scrawny. In a lot of seats that is kind of torture. It was fine when I was 25, but at close to 45 it is just painful longhaul, but at least there I can sit. I cannot physically sit in some chairs in short EU flights without bothering everyone around me. Which is why they usually just put me somewhere else.

Indeed if I was 2 by 2 I would say I should book 2 chairs, but inside EU, especially northern EU, a lot of people are tall and in NL (where I am from) often taller than me and yet the seats are smaller than a lot of asian airline seats where I am the tallest. If you have to fly for vacation or very sporadically then it does not matter too much, but if you fly a lot and for work, in which case you want to feel rested, it is somewhat of a pain to go through the same thing every time.

Then ofcourse, you can say 'pay more'; the unfortunate thing is that EU internal flight business class is just economy with slightly more legroom and a free middle seat for a looooot of money. While, again in Asia, business class on short flights, means large chairs (2-2 arrangements with comfy chairs vs 3-3 cheap feeling plastic mini chairs in the same A320) for less money for the same distance.

The lack of a true business class within EU really stunned me. I really don't understand it.

I don't fit, at all, in Economy seats, so a proper business class seat is my only option if I'm going to fly.

I tried booking Business flights within Europe last year, but after re-checking flight details several times, looking on SeatGuru, and a ton of googling I realised there just wasn't any(1).

Instead, I ended up getting trains and ferries (and the occasional train-ferry, thanks Germany/Denmark) to go Amsterdam->Oslo->Barcelona->Amsterdam.

It took a lot longer, but at least I was comfortable, and I got to visit a bunch of extra places in between.

e: (1) okay, there are some 'secret' ones where a long-haul international aircraft is re-positioned, but these are hard to find, subject to an aircraft swap or outright cancellation at any time, and on limited routes and dates.

Yeah I know a few long haul ones, like Heathrow to Amsterdam with a flight that goes to Indonesia is a widebody with proper business. Because of the short stop and most people in Heathrow are boarding for Indonesia. But those are not common.

Yes business is in most cases a blocked middle seat. BA used to have more leg room but that was "enhanced" away

The problem is business demand varies wildly - some flights will warrant 50 seats, some struggle with 5, sp the cabins are varied -- by eliminating extra leg room BA squeezed in 12 more seats, which is £500 on a full plane. They figures that was better than losing 1 seat in business which itself is £500, because most people travelling in business are paying for the schedule and thus don't have competition.

the train often works well on the continent - especially with sleeper trains. Eurostar is less appealing thanks to the security theatre, and Paris is a pain to change in.

rip

6'6" here, I've done NY->LA->MELBOURNE and back again 5 times along with many Euro trips. There has to be something called height discrimination...

This would be a cool place to try short-term "seat-swapping" rentals, a real "AirBnB" (ba-da-ching) as it were:

You buy a super-expensive bed-cube on a 20-hour flight, then register your flight and seat and mark a schedule when it's available for seat-swapping. "Guests" can book in 15-minute increments (on-demand if the flight has Internet). During their time, you swap seats and get to know their seat-neighbors.

Assuming an hour on each end for take-off/landing, and 8 hours you'd reserve for sleeping, that leaves 10 hours at $20/15-min = $800 recouped.

Except the Business Class seats flying international cost $10k+ in many cases (from what I hear online, I can barely afford to fly cattle class once every 5 years). I don't think someone that spends that much is willing to give up their seat for a majority of the flight for $800?

He said in 15 minutes increment how is that the majority of a 18h flight? I believe the purpose is to stretch and for the other person to save a bit of money. So you may book it a few times during the 18h flight maybe every 4 hours for 30 minutes and pay for that.

I'm roughly the size you described and my 14-ish hour flight to China was the closest thing to torture I've ever experienced. The last few hours were pure physical and mental agony. Too tired to do anything productive, too uncomfortable to sleep, and sick of every form of in-flight entertainment.

Maybe frequent flyers get used to it or know how to prepare better for long fights, but I'll be making sure I have a layover from now on.

Been to China many times on a 14 hour flight over the years. The secret is the following:

- Do lunges & pushups every few hours to prevent butt from getting sore

- Workout/Run the day before or morning. Don't oversleep, lean on having less sleep before the flight (6-7 hours)

- Don't bother doing any work. Find that book you've wanted to read for some time, read that.

- Pick an aisle or window seat, middle seat sucks

When you get to your destination, do the following:

- Take a 1 hour nap in the middle of the day. This resets jetlag so you can sleep on a normal schedule

Additionally, noise cancelling headphones are amazing for helping sleep.

If a chemical method is your thing, I've heard good things about motion sickness medication, but I've never used it.

where do you do your pushups?

near the toilet in the back, where flight attendants grab food entrees. Almost every airplane has a larger footspace around this area.

For what it’s worth I did find that I adapted to long flights and jet lag. The first time I did the NYC to LON redeye I was a mess the first day. After doing it every other week for awhile it was no problem. Then I did a Dallas to Sydney flight and found I had no trouble. I moved my sleep around a couple days before so that I would sleep for the middle 8 hours of the 16 hour flight. Being awake for four hours on either side of a night of sleep and getting up to walk around a lot made it a breeze.

Frequent flyers fly business class. It would be insane to fly a full work flight schedule in long-haul economy.

The occasional SFO-NYC in economy where my upgrade doesn't clear is torture. I can't fathom doing my usual 10h weekly flight in economy seats. I fly 150k miles a year, on about 80 flights or so. Pretty much all in business or first. Paid by myself. It's really not as expensive as people think… I spend maybe $15,000 annually on flights. Optimizing judiciously is key.

You should then try a 20 hours long bus trip instead in order to traverse 1/10th of the distance.

I honestly do not care how comfortable and/or uncomfortable the plane is as long as it takes me wherever I want to go. I'd rather keep my wads of cash and spend them on stuff that make me happy.

I'm 5'6" and 135lbs and have flown on a lot of 13+ hour flights. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's even legal to make airline coach seats current size, because it barely fits me. After 9 hours, I'm usually ready to stab myself.

Business class has gotten pretty cheap these days. I'm in the middle of a trip from LA to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and New York… all in business class with the long-hauls on lie-flat seats. Total cost… $1700. Entirely reasonable, and for me paying a bit extra is a no-brainer.

Best I've seen is virgin atlantic. When I flew to vegas from London with them it was $45 USD per flight to get an economy seat with a bit more room. There was about 8 or 9 rows of these slightly roomier seats and it was great. Wish more airlines did this.

Or take a layover. Explore Addis Ababa, take a break, check out Dublin, then reach Washington.

Being over 6'2" is very rare. In the US, it's maybe 1 in 30 men.

1 in 30 is hardly “very rare”. That means you know well more than 10 people who are that tall, and the average bus is likely to have one.

I am 6 foot 6. I sat next to my Friend who is 6 foot 9 on a flight from Chicago to Paris. Only 9 hours, but absolutely miserable.

It will never happen. They know what folk will tollerate.

Ok, maybe they take a couple seats out and put a treadmill, charge an equivalent cost.

I did a similar 16.5hr + 7hr a little while ago. It was still excruciating in a lie-flat seat on a decent carrier.

Flying 12 hours Emirates was one of the most pleasant journeys of my life. (broad shoulders too, and no /s)

While I understand being frugal, why skimp on long range transportation? It will be a miserable experience.

Because the price difference between economy and business class can exceed the cost of the rest of the trip - it's not within the realm of affordability for many people, they can either fly economy or not at all.

If I am going to be miserable on an extended flight due to cost, I'd just find somewhere else to go.

That's not always an easy choice... Like if you have family overseas and you want to go home for a family event or illness.

Or you really want to go to city X, but the price difference is rent for a month (or more).

I've been looking up flights recently and if your rent is less than 700 you are lucky. You can buy a first class ticket, round trip to the other side of the planet

Just because you've found one ticket somewhere for $700 doesn't mean that's where I want to go or is a time that I can go. Many of my vacations revolve around family events for extended family in another country, so I have limited flexibility in dates or destination.

I'm looking at tickets right now, $735 for economy, $3500 - $6000+ for business, $15,000+ for first class. Fortunately I have a lot of miles, so a 160K mile business class awards ticket is a possibility.

It wasn't just one ticket, i was looking at quite a few destinations, that was just an example. If you plan ahead and shift the departure by a single day the price drops incredibly.

Bullshit.

Unless the airline made a huge mistake, I could have bought a round trip ticket to Thailand for 700 first class. It would obviously be slightly higher in price after fees, 9/11 security fees and whatever else is tacked on. Let's say it's a total of 1k.

Save for it. Get good credit cards with valuable travel points. Put it off until you can pay for a premium experience which you'll enjoy more. While saving research deeply where you are going and plan for a longer trip - it makes spending money on better travel more economical.

Get good credit cards with valuable travel points

That's still out of reach of many people.

Put it off until you can pay for a premium experience which you'll enjoy more

I've vacationed in economy, business class, and first class, and the flight is the least memorable part of the trip -- I'd rather spend more money at the destination. For sure, a lay flat seat on a long-haul flight is fantastic compared to being strapped in a coach seat for 8+ hours, but unless I can pay for it with miles, I'd rather spend the money on a nicer hotel or longer stay (or just keep that money in my pocket)

I think many people would. But yet there is incessant complaining about their flight. There just seems to be this cognitive dissonance between keeping money in the pocket and complaining about flight arrangements. Either save longer or deal with it.

I think a lot of that stems from the ever shrinking seat pitch and width. Like United's 3-4-3 seating on the 777 - it is super cramped, even in Economy Plus (which gives a few inches of leg room but no more width). I'll never fly on that seat configuration again unless I fly first or business class.

Most people complaining are probably those people who have to fly a lot for work. From a psychological perspective I imagine that a flight is a lot less enjoyable if what's waiting for you on the other side is a series of sales meetings compared to if it's that 2 week vacation you've been looking forward to all year.

Why should people not complain if they feel the next higher product tier is a rip-off? You could buy two seats at twice the price to get some more space to spread yourself over, but that's obviously not ideal. Some people are asking for something better, but airlines might not be aware of consumer demand (or ignore it because they want to sell their higher tier seats, which many people can't afford, though).

I'd rather fly somewhere interesting twice a year on a crappy flight than once every 5 years on a business class flight. If anything I'd much rather spend any extra money I might have on a better hotel than on a better flight.

And anyway even with the best possible credit card you have to be pretty rich to spend enough to earn enough points for a transatlantic business class flight for your family.

Because my employer doesn't pay for anything higher than Y, even on long haul international.

(That, and all the other points made in this thread - which are perfectly valid, and I say this as someone who has a tonne of miles and has flown long-haul business class for leisure...)

You should avoid any flights with the new 737 MAX then. I flew on it recently and I have never been so uncomfortable on a flight and I am not tall (5'9)

Comfort isn't closely related to the airplane model - it's the airlines which pick the seats and layout.

Part of the dreamliner pitch is it's supposed to be better for passengers because of the cabin pressure, and... something else, I forget what. Maybe noise?

When it comes to seat width and pitch, though, that's all on the airlines.

The humidity is supposedly also much better, thanks to much more use of composite materials in its construction (corrosion concerns keep humidity much lower on other passenger aircraft). I've certainly heard anecdotally that this was noticeable, but who knows.

I've yet to fly on one so can't claim one way or the other.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner

Humidity - carbon fiber fuselage can support more water in the cabin atmosphere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com