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Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

More details here: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ae/flying-v/

> "we’re looking into new options to having a rest or taking meals on a plane. Offering food from a buffet is one of the options we’re sinking our teeth in"

Based on the A380 "promises" of in-flight gyms/casino/salons/creches, I think we can safely call bullshit on this - we'll just get more seats crammed in as usual (in economy at least - perhaps first class will get these?). That is fine - I understand the economics - it is marketing I guess.

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You get what you pay for. If you want to pay absolute bottom-dollar prices, you're going to get absolute bottom-dollar service. If you want to pay more you can and will get more services. I've hung out at an on-board bar on a 777 in the last year on a flight from Australia to the US, but the ticket cost over $8k USD round-trip.

It's possible to have a private shower and bedroom onboard an A380 flight, but you will pay dearly for the privilege.

There's room in the market for both extremes as well as in the middle. I doubt you'll get a buffet service on a round trip ticket that costs <$500 (trans-oceanic, at least) as it likely is not economical to offer that. That being said, there are airlines that are offering improved options even in Economy cabins... they just charge for it. An example is Air New Zealand's "Economy Skycouch" https://www.airnewzealand.com/economy-skycouch

So with the possibility that this design could save on fuel costs, maybe airlines will be able to sell upgraded experiences at prices that are today bare-bones. Time will tell.

The problem is that now there's so much price pressure on the economy seats, they are subsidized by the more expensive options. If you want a first class seat today, that takes 50% more room on the aircraft, you will pay what, 2, 3, 4 times as much money? There's really no middle ground. I'm fine with that, cause I have a family or four, we're all short, and I'm cheap, but I guess that makes me part of the problem. :D

First class seats take up way more space than 50% more. Look at the seat maps on something like SeatGuru. On width alone they take up over twice the space, and I'd guess depth would be far more.

"Take from the rich, give to the poor!"

Although in my experience, many companies that don't care that much about travel expenses pay most of the economy seats. At least on the transatlantic flights I've been on.

Im 6'5" and cant afford 1st class. I am miserable and my knees are jammed against the seat for hours. 1 inch more and I'd be fine.

There has got to be more tiers

Economy, Premimum Economy, Business, First. How many tiers do you want?

He wants to pay 5% more for a couple more inches of leg room.

He said he couldn't afford First. There's literally two other tiers in between that and Economy.

Do any of those tiers allow paying 5% more for a couple of inches of legroom?

There is usually both premium economy and business class between economy and first.

I very rarely see both business and first on a given flight and can’t recall ever seeing it on a narrow body.

Most longer intercontinental flights have both business and first in my experience. But I agree that I don't think I've seen it on a narrow body airplane

For $15-$35 more (usually) there are seats with 6" extra legroom.

Yeah that's just not true at all in the US. Delta's premium economy gives an extra inch or so. Sometimes you can get lucky in finding one of the few seats with no person in front of you. But those go fast, and usually to people who don't even need them(not that there is a problem of need, but as a fellow 6'5er it is a bit annoying). Even so, even on shorter hauls, that kind of upgrade is typically in the 100 dollar range.

Yes. I don't fly too much, and I never saw these upgrades..unless they were quite expensive...and it is per flight, meaning, if there are several layovers, you pay for each plane.

Literally everything you said is false. It's $25-$35 or so in the US for 6"+ extra room. It's never been in the $100+ range in any flight I've ever been on.

I do it all the time.

Can you cite even a single source? I, unfortunately, fly all the time. Chicago to SFO upgrade on United is 129 dollars. And you don't get 6 inches more legroom...

https://gyazo.com/24ccae9fe9c155020b20ea2398ce6cbc

https://gyazo.com/1cfc5e5edb0aa4a9734138fce73c002e

Both American flights I'm taking in the next month. All have increased legroom, it literally says "Up to 6 inches".

Heh, I suppose I should mention these are out of Tulsa... :)

Well, thanks for that. I'll admit I'm a bit surprised, and also spoke too broadly(aka, wrong...perhaps). I'm curious now what airline/route that's for. Even my direct 2 hour flights to DC cost 40 to 50 to upgrade at a minimum, the last one wanted 69 dollars...

Exit row seats?

The ticket price categories are surely determined by what they can sell for (price segmentation) not their cost to provide.

> The problem is that now there's so much price pressure on the economy seats, they are subsidized by the more expensive options.

Are you really suggesting that airlines make a loss on economy seats?

Airlines have been having record profit the last several years, especially in the US. Over the last decade they have figured out how to take back pricing power from the internet and they've gotten better at data anlysis and price discrimination.

> It's possible to have a private shower and bedroom onboard an A380 flight, but you will pay dearly for the privilege.

I wonder if a paid shower pass system would work. You wait your turn, but you get to take a shower, for, say, something like $100. Just seems like it's kept to an all-or-nothing on purpose.

What percentage of fare price is fuel?

From my experience, flying longer connections actually makes the price lower. Significantly. For example 30% longer flight, half the normal price. So nobody really cares about fuel in pricing

There are no in-flight gyms/casino/salons/creches but we have in-flight bed, shower, bar right now.

I was just on an A380 Business class flight.

I can tell you there is a "saloon" on this thing, because at 37000 feet I stood in my Qatar PJ's with two other guys and drank cocktails in the bar.

surreal experience for me...

Think about it.

500 years ago it took Columbus and his crew of 88 men ten weeks to reach America in three 58 foot, 100 ton wooden boats pushed along the ocean by wind. They had no toilets, ate boiled food with cheese and salted meats.

Today, 525 of us can travel on a 230 feet long, 600 ton flying boat lifted above the clouds crossing over the north pole from Los Angeles to Dubai at Mach 0.8 in 17 hours. We can watch movies, special order a kosher or vegetarian meal, drink fine wine while wearing complimentary socks and PJ's. For a few thousand dollars each.

In another perspective, it took 500 years for it to happen, progress feel slow.

what a time to be alive huh?

Thanks—we've changed the URL to that from https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2019/tu-delft/klm-and-tu-delft-joi..., which is a corporate press release.

For a lot more in-depth info, and even flight footage from a scaled RC demonstrator, see link below (from 2015, flight test at 1:18:30 in the video - yes it's a >1h long presentation/lecture)

https://www.jbenad.com/news/2015/2/4/flyingv

Yeah, they made the same promises for the 747 as well.

In case anyone else wondered why an A380 would include religious symbolism: in North American English, a crèche is a Christmas nativity scene with baby Jesus, while in British English, a crèche is a nursery/daycare. The latter makes much more sense on a plane.

Interesting - I assumed creche was an American term and widely understood. In the UK I've never heard it used much (we typically use "nursery" but I opted for creche based on the assumption that most readers are not UK-natives)

It's French, it means both nursery and the nativity scene. Each side of the Atlantic decided to land on the other definition

Nursery is way more common here in the States, creche is usually used when someone is writing sci-fi or fantasy and wants to sound fancy =)

I agree with that. I’ve only known crèches as places where a human body is held in order to be augmented or have a mind transfer to a body in a second crèche.

Nurseries are for human children; creches are for ineffable alien offspring-rearing purposes.

I'm from the UK and I hear crèche used way more than nursery.

Créche is for children, nursery is for plants.

Simple. (UK resident.)

> a crèche is a Christmas nativity scene with baby Jesus

That's a scene... of a crèche. It's the same terminology.

I know how to make A380 profitable, but you may not like it...

Put 1000 economy class seats into it and fly NYC-London, or Tokyo-SF till it falls apart. I otherwise have no idea how in the world can it make money.

I seriously believe that second hand A380s will eventually see this fate.

Economy class seats generally speaking will earn the least amount of money to an airline, so this idea would actually likely be the most unprofitable option.

To make it truly profitable, you convert the plane to First class, but then you'll need to fill all those seats.

Wendover Productions had a great video on this a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc

Why, then, do the companies only offering one class (South West, Ryan Air) tend to make a profit, while the ones with multi class (KLM, Air France, American Airlines) tend to lose money?

That video is very wrong compared to real life. For the first: it assumes a full plane. My experience is that economy tends to be full, business has a lot of available seats. For the second: it does not account for the cost of running lounges, fast track security and other complimentary services offered to business and first class passengers.

Look at the companies. Filling the plane with economy passengers and offering low service level is what brings profitability.

I believe Southwest makes its money by catering to business persons that pay more for flexible scheduling and more direct flight options rather than paying more for amenities.

iirc, southwest's seating policy allows them to turn planes around faster than airlines that assign seats.

You still have to fill it. It would probably be easier to fly 3 or 4 A321LR instead depending on demand.

You don’t have gyms/casino/salons/creches in your A380?

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