New airplane seat design to make it easier to sleep in economy | Hacker News Reader

New airplane seat design to make it easier to sleep in economy

cnn.com

299 pointslxm471 comments

Wow, I can’t believe how dismissive most of the comments here are.

The idea of adding folding wings to existing seat dimensions could be a huge, huge improvement for sleeping on flights.

No, it’s not changing or solving anything else. Yes the model is tiny. No this isn’t solving existing recline issues if you’re 6’5”. If you have incredibly broad shoulders then you might not be able to use the wings but you can still leave them folded up and it’s the same as now.

But this is still an improvement. This is a site for hackers looking to improve things. This feels like a really clever seat hack to me.

Can we actually just appreciate that it could be an improvement, rather than just rail on airline seat sizes? This is making seats better not worse.

Let's say this adds 10 pounds to each seat times 150-400 seats. No way the airlines would go for it they are trying to cut weight from the planes to scrape every ounce of fuel economy out of the airframe. It is a non-starter.

Airlines also have zero incentive to increase passenger comfort because most airlines operate near capacity (all flights full/overbooked) on most routes because of deregulation. You have no alternative, so why would they spend money?

The best time to fly was immediately after 9/11. Airlines were failing because people stopped flying. Half of every flight was empty, and the airlines were fighting for your business adding technology, entertainment, and cutting fares. The airlines cared about you when they had to fight for your business. Within 10 years they were profitable again, at capacity again, and massively started to cut services (food, baggage, etc.)

In no way am I advocating another 9/11 just to be clear. I am only reflecting on my own experiences flying.

2009 was pretty good too. During the next major recession/depression the cut back on both business and vacation travelers will be significant. Which, I think is ok to advocate for given we are now in the longest expansion in US history.

It's okay... to advocate for a major economic recession to make flying more comfortable for those of us with somewhat recession-proof skills?

> Airlines also have zero incentive to increase passenger comfort

Airlines seem in a constant fight for passenger comfort to me! Some have as many as five cabin tiers, attempting to make as many people as comfortable as their budgets will allow. There's competition to make the most luxurious lounges. Out-fitting of power and WiFi seems to have been effective. Whole new aircraft like the 787 are designed with passenger comfort as a priority.

> In no way am I advocating another 9/11

Well at least you're being moderate then!

I would characterize this more as a fight for revenue maximization than passenger comfort, at least within the US for domestic flights. I fly premium classes quite a bit, and spend a lot of time in lounges. My experience is that a lot of these products launch with a bang, start out strong, but very quickly the cuts start. The airlines (or lounge operators) seem to constantly be working to see just how little they can get away with providing while still getting people to pay. International is a different game to some degree, but even there it’s not really all that unusual to see cuts to the premium products while still charging the same amount.

> Airlines seem in a constant fight for passenger comfort to me!

Passenger comfort is what they like to talk about. That doesn't mean it's what they're really trying to optimize. They optimize for density too, but they're not about to advertise that. It's dangerous to mistake marketing for reality. So yeah, they'll add another cabin tier. Then they'll charge a fee for it and reduce the seat pitch elsewhere on their next order. It works really well when there are a few people who can pay for the upgrade out of their own pocket (most companies won't reimburse for it), but that's not really optimizing for comfort. And most people never get to use the lounges.

It's good to be one of those extra-revenue types, but when I take advantage of those things I'm keenly aware that I'm exercising a form of privilege. For most people, air travel isn't getting more enjoyable.

There are a bunch of reasons this prototype will fail, but weight doesn't seem like the top of the list.

"The seat prototype on show at the launch was a carbon fiber, lightweight design -- but the designer insists the wings could be fitted to most existing seats, whatever their material."

This article has raises a number of issues. The biggest being increase of turnaround time from the complexity of cleaning, and also problem with the food service tray when wings are deployed.

https://thedesignair.net/2019/12/07/interspace-the-new-seat-...

I think if these ever make it into planes it will probably be in first class... even though there is little need for it there. Or perhaps in economy if each seat only gets a single wing.

It will be a 4th layer of premium economy!

I hear what you mean about the empty planes. The best flying in my memory was in the 1970s. Everything was much more casual, less populated, and slower-paced. I remember eating freshly-fried eggs for breakfast on a 747, with metal silverware, in coach.

After 9/11 I remember a lot of fear. I got searched a lot. Everyone was tense. All connection points became more isolated (e.g., you can no longer walk your family to the gate). Most non-white men I know immediately started having a worse time flying after 9/11.

Now, there was also a smoking “section” in the back of the plane, and safety standards were nowhere near as robust as today, and everything was _way_ more expensive (relative to today).

Sleeping was easier since the seats were wider. If the post-deregulation business model requires packing people in like little cattle, some sort of veal-cubicle isolation wings seem reasonable.

Yes and you paid like 4000 dollars for a London New York return ticket economy class. You can still fly relatively comfortable for that price. But they call it first class now.

What about competition? In north and south Americas, there is not much competition, but Europe and Asia has a quite tough competition. Budget airlines like Air Asia have added free in-flight WiFi with local server streaming (so you can watch movies on your phone). Malindo (a semi-budget airline) serves food and free baggage on certain routes just to compete with Air Asia. Ryan and Wizz air (Europe) have a tough competition as well, and Wizz is flying to rather better airports unlike Ryan Air.

Thank you! From a person who falls asleep and hits his head at airplane's wall every time I sit near the window. This thing would definitely help.

The images shows they reduce the width between a passenger and the arm rest when the majority of people are already cramped in these seats. Really, the model in that picture must be tiny to have that kind of room. So, this may help children sleep on aircraft but the design as shown is useless to me or most other tall adults.

Only when unfolded. Folded is the same.

And the point is this is for sleeping leaning against a side. You wouldn’t be using the armrests then anyways.

I’m 6’1” and this design looks like a huge improvement to me.

Where do they get stored when folded? Seems like I'm either losing space left to right when unfolded or losing space front to back when folded. Is that not correct?

Agreed! This is my dream seat. I like the aisle because I can get up but sometimes I miss window seats because you have a wall to lean against. This brings the wall to any seat.

I would happily pay a little more for this seat.

Some of the statements in the article really weird me out though:

> Who hasn't struggled to sleep on an airplane economy seat, forced to improvise a makeshift pillow out of a rolled up sweater or scarf?

> A new seat design comes with an innovative solution to this inflight issue, using "padded wings" that fold out from behind both sides of the seat back -- allowing both for additional privacy and a cushioned spot to rest heads for some shut-eye.

Train seats have long provided padded headrests and "horns" on the side so your head doesn't move all around while you're sleeping. On some the headrest can even be reconfigured to provide a cradle of sorts.

The "blinkers" effect looks useful, as both a bit of a privacy screen and a way not to e.g. get light in your eye from the bloke across the aisle.

The last two international flights I've flown have already had small wings on the headrest. Not a big as the ones shown here, but useable at my height/size (5'7", 150lbs).

I think you are just dismissing the fact that people have genuine grievances, even if they are not only not expressing themselves properly because they probably feel utterly powerless, but also because they likely don't quite understand how their own actions lead to the current situation.

Is it not legitimate to point out that they either used an old looking 6 year old girl, photoshopped the heck out of that image, or the seat is not at all to dimension of the common airplane seat. Seriously, I have broad shoulders … not even the broadest … and I have a hard time just keeping my shoulders within my space due to the laws of physics being violated by the seat widths on these planes these days.

I don't think it is fair of you to just dismiss the growing frustrations towards legitimate issues, even if those expressing them are having to deal with the consequences of their own values that translated into what they supported and that then translated into actions and inactions taken by government and industry.

I hate to break it to you people, but between "free" money being printed by basically all central banks, unfettered "immigration", the sellout to China and India, environmental regulation and capture that will make flying ever more expensive once the environmentalists realize just how damaging flying is, affirmative action and diversity type policies that cause all kinds of inefficiencies and conflicts and collisions in systems, among several other things … will all only make this situation far worse.

Some way blather something about how new technology will develop new planes, but reality is that it will not lead to wider seats, only more seats wide. The designs are already baked into the production lines at this point and all fuselage designs ALL are designed to specs for getting more seats in width wise, not wider seats.

If people wanted wider seats, they should have pushed through legislation requiring certain seat widths on human rights grounds about 10 or 15 years ago. You would never be able to get anything like that pushed through unless some wily judge is willing to throw wrenches into the aerospace industry gears.

Wouldn't a diversity initiative improve the situation for those of us that aren't height or width challenged?

note that "the model" is the writer of the story.

these seats are an improvement but airlines have long been user hostile, so it's understandable that folks are skeptical.

I don't agree. Users are hostile to their own comfort, with the vast majority of travelers focused exclusively on price. Air travel has never been cheaper, and a less comfortable seat is a big part of that tradeoff.

It's hard not to be cynical, especially when some airlines have solved this problem the old fashioned way - by providing a reasonable amount of space in the first place. I'd rather airlines find a way to match the dimensions of Jet Blue than come up with "innovations" that make their unrealistic seat dimensions slightly less miserable.

The issue is how capitalism works. No one wants to pay a 1000$ for a domestic flight, but that's the only way you're getting personal space. Flights in the past were expensive, but comfortable.

It's not a right to have space and affordability.

I'd pay $1000 for a domestic flight with leg room and a slightly wider seat. I flew first class out to San Diego recently and I would have done it on the way home as well but they wanted $2500 more for the same flight the other direction. That's just ridiculous. Flights in the past were never that expensive for the same comfort.

Full fare Y tickets from LAX-JFK are $2819 return. That’s how much the tickets were pre-deregulation.

They were much higher man. Pick a year/decade and I'll show you how much higher they were. Flying was for the wealthy in the 60s - 70s. Don't forget inflation. After deregulation, prices dropped by 50% or so.

Most airlines do have a Comfort+ that is pretty affordable and allows you more room and a better seat.

Dulles to O'hare (return fight) is ~$250-$300 economy. Business class is $600-$700. (both found using Google Flights)

So, you can already do what you want (get leg room and comfort for $1000 or less).

I'd appreciate that this possibly could make airline economy flights better, if I believed that airlines had nonzero interest in improving the experiences they offer their economy passengers.

Airlines are interested in three things: more paid passengers in the same cabin volume, less weight per seat, and less turnaround cost on the ground. I'm not sure how the new seat design serves any of those factors.

> The designers are considering adding facial recognition technology to the design.

Um, what

> In fitting with the trend towards more personalized, data-driven flying experiences, New Territory is keen to add facial recognition technology to the mix too.

> The idea is that as the seat wing recognizes that you've fallen asleep, it'll automatically turn off the movie playing on your IFE.

This could be the worst idea ever. Have cameras pointed at every flyer for the duration of the flight, for the incredibly minor benefit of stopping your movie? To me this sounds like they wanted to add facial recognition regardless, so they found a problem to their solution.

> Have cameras pointed at every flyer for the duration of the flight, for the incredibly minor benefit of stopping your movie?

I flew on an Emirates A380 recently that had a front-facing camera in the IFE system. I'm not sure what its intended purpose was - perhaps to allow video calls?

I had no way to tell if it was in-use during the flight, but i assume there were already other cameras in the main passenger cabin with sufficient resolution to tell whether someone's eyes are open.

Eventually AI will be watching your stress level mannerisms and micro-expressions to determine if youre a risk to the flight.

In the beginning, yes.

But after a short while the AI would carefully watch you while playing non-skippable ads to gauge how to maximize revenue per customer.

Unless you're a medieval king with 200 servants it's difficult to imagine yes. Maybe when someone is disabled? But then again sound would be enough.

? What was this supposed to be to?

It is for video calls. Depending on your class, you can video call the flight attendants

Whay's the point of video calling someone in the same room a few meters away?

When my house was built, I considered adding a wired intercom system. I could never think of a reason why it would be better than just yelling.

Many DECT phones have this functionality without being wired. Also there probably is a way to use SIP locally as an intercom between smartphones.

Unlike an intercom they're portable.

The main thing missing is voice or sound activated pick-up and hang-up, sometimes automatic loudspeaker mode.

I rejected wireless intercoms at the time because every wireless thing I bought had horrible sound quality, like the worst walkie-talkie. Even with simple analog electronics, wired had good sound quality.

I did install some speaker wires, but the times when I wanted to play music in one room and hear it in another are just about never.

Guess I'm just not finding any point to home automation. Even if I had installed a home automation system, the intervening years would have turned it into expensive obsolete junk anyway. I've heard of people, when they try to sell their homes, having to rip it all out and put in conventional wiring.

What did pay off was running Cat5 and RG6 cables in a star configuration. Wifi has improved greatly, but it's nothing like a wired connection for smooth, problem free operation.

>I did install some speaker wires, but the times when I wanted to play music in one room and hear it in another are just about never.

I have speakers around my house, including on my deck, wired to a stereo receiver for music and I do use it. But Sonos didn't exist when I had the various renovations done when the wiring was added. If I were doing it today, I'd almost certainly just go with some sort of wireless system.

So you can communicate without waking up your sleeping infant, turns out. Though phones work for this too.

Stop worrying about waking up the kids with your noise, and they'll soon learn it's normal (even comforting) and sleep right through it.

If you're yelling enough for your children to no longer wake up from it, your neighbours will typically call a social worker.

I doubt they'd call the social workers over yelling "Mr. Watson come here - I want to see you."

That probably works great for your children, and I'm very happy for you, but not shouting works a treat for me. If a child slept through shouting that was loud enough in my house to be heard (we have 3 foot thick stone walls) I would be worried about their hearing.

Also, I mean this in the most polite way possible, but unsolicited parenting advice is often not received as well as one might hope.

It's less disruptive if the passenger is in the window seat.

How so? There is already a button to get the flight attendant to come over without having to move yourself, and you are going to talk aloud all the same. In fact with video calling you may disrupt a larger number of people since the flight attendant is also going to talk aloud in a different part of the cabin, creating two disjointed pockets of noise.

Using a call button, the flight attendant has to come over twice - once to find out what you want, and then again to bring you the thing you asked for. Any form of remote communication (video chat, text message, whatever) reduces that to a single interaction.

Fewer trips down the aisle, less time spent leaning over other passengers, etc.

If I were the PM on this project I probably would've used a standard menu of services (get a blanket, refill water bottle) in an app on the IFE display instead, but the principle is sound.

A button to get peanuts ...

> A button to get peanuts ...

Or a blanket, or a gin tonic, or a cup of noodles between meal services on a 16-hour flight from Hong Kong to New York...

Ordering food from your IFE is pretty common, at least in business class on the asian airlines. I think I've done it on CX and JL, at least.

On an A380, they could be on a different floor and 200 meters away...

You mean 200 feet?

Yeah, I got a little carried away there...

I'm pretty sure many airlines already have cameras looking at your face.

The last few international United Airlines flights I was on had IR LEDs just below the seat entertainment screen shining in my face the whole flight. I worked for an 3D camera company at the time and was pretty tuned in to IR (~850 nm) LED's dim red glow. There is no reason for them being there unless there are cameras looking at your face.

But why?

They probably put it in to do gaze tracking in the hopes of selling that data back to movie studios/advertisers. I'm not sure if they currently sell this data, but I'm sure we will find out when/if some disclaimer flashes on the screen in the beginning of the flight.

Hopefully it doesn’t catch on too much. I’d boycott any airline that I knew was doing that.

Would security services pay for good 3D scans of all people taking airline flights. Seems a possibility to me.

"As with many other airlines, some of our premium seats have in-flight entertainment systems that came with cameras installed by the manufacturer," a United Airlines spokesperson said. "None of these cameras were ever activated and we had no plans to use them in the future, however, we took the additional step to cover the cameras."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/united-airlines-covers-up-info...

Next minute: DHS adds PostIt notes to the list of banned items in aircraft cabins...

I flew a United 787-9 recently and noticed an IR LED too, but I assumed it was a proximity sensor (when you bring your hands close to the bottom of the screen the home button, headphone jack, and USB charging port light up).

It's an IR proximity sensor, at least on the Panasonic systems.

Some of the Thales systems do have webcams.

The camera will be used to automatically pause the ads when your eyes are closed.

Highly reminiscent of "Fifteen Million Merits" from Black Mirror.

well that's scary

Drink a verification can to continue.

One minute of complementary breathable air is provided in exchange for each minute of advertisements viewed.

“eyes open” vs “eyes closed” is a face detection problem, not a recognition one.

Can’t they just put “are you still there” button like Netflix? Would be cheaper and less creepy.

... coupled with a movement sensor built into the sitting surface.

It would also have less false positives. I sometimes close my eyes and just listen to the audio, for TV documentaries for ex. and there are also radio programs.

Yeh and what about listening to tv while trying to fall a sleep ?

As someone who doesn't sleep much on planes, the benefit of turning off all of the video that my sleeping neighbors are playing is significant.

Good point, but do you need facial recognition to do that?

+1 to this. I don't love trying to sleep on planes at the best of times, but when you're surrounded by people who have happily fallen asleep in front of some bright flashing screen it drives me out of my mind. Flight attendants will usually switch them off if you ask, though.

Two years ago they would have been finding a way to add blockchain.

How else do you keep track of who slept and how much as to bill for the enhanced usage of your seat? /s

"With our advanced Proof of Sleep algorithm... In the cloud..."

I think you mean Earth Computing. Your data stored and analysed in the ground.

… using Deep Learning and NoSQL …

my new favorite MBA tech word is "serverless"

This is particularly funny for me as a person who works for an ISP at layers 1 to 4 on the OSI model. There's always some real hardware somewhere running it. Can't escape from the bare metal, only abstract it away behind layers of obfuscation.

I'm sure somewhere on Earth right now there is already a startup based on block chain storage of convolutional neural network learning face recognition.

Surely such a thing would exist not on Earth, but in the Cloud.

I don’t suspect this is true, as VCs would quickly go bankrupt investing enormous amounts of money into such a startup

VC returns are not what you think they are. There is a lot of dumb money floating around and the long term returns of quite a few funds are much lower than what you might think. A couple of funds outperform the remainder quite handily which results in an average that looks acceptable but quite a few people lost a lot of $ on becoming an LP of a badly managed fund.

That won't stop the fund managers from making out like bandits, the carry may be nil but the management fees will more than make up for that. Beware of investing in funds where the fund managers do not have substantial skin in the game.

> There is a lot of dumb money floating around

I like to refer to funding and acquisitions in terms of Juiceros, equivalent to $120M. Instagram was purchased for about 8.3 Juiceros.

Hehe, that's funny. I may adopt that, but at the level that I'm investing I'll have to use uJuiceros or there will be way too many zeros.

I do the same, but I measure in terms of Instagrams. I might take your idea for sub-Instagram units, though measuring by units of $120 million adds more overhead than units of $1 billion.

Check out this antiquated walrus over here, talking about Blockchain convolutional neural networks like it’s November 2019.

Here in the present we’re doing our neural networks with non-quantum simulated quantum networks that definitely don’t not not work.

Two years already?! Even the hype cycles have to adjust their x-axis.

I'm not worried, that will sink in the data lake too.

I still receive decks with great regularity that drag the blockchain in by the hairs. Extremely boring and a very quick way to end up in the round archive. One of those two days ago. It was so cringeworthy I'd almost post it here but that's sort of rude. This one was a borderline scam with a whole pile of content recycled from other decks and fake education records for the participants. Who ever thought we'd check up on that stuff, so just lie away with abandon.

It's good stuff to keep the partners sharp though, see if they spot the mistakes.

>a very quick way to end up in the round archive

I love this phrase

> This one was a borderline scam with a whole pile of content recycled from other decks and fake education records for the participants.

Fake education records... that's over the borderline for me, and definitely falls into scam territory.

Tricky territory. Lots of people will embellish something when they're in sales mode, in this case the same set of schools could be found for several different people who all happened to be involved in the coin scene. The chances of that being coincidence are nil, but that's not quite proof. That said I'd bet a couple of grand on it without being too worried.

I specifically put on mediocre movies to help me sleep on flights. I often wake up when they finish. I can't be alone here.

Boring meetings have the same effect on me. The main challenge is, not to snore.

In my senior year at Caltech, I flew out with some others to interview at HP. HP made a group presentation to us. I fell asleep halfway through the presentation and woke up halfway to the floor, and hit the floor with quite a crash. I inspired quite a bit of laughter with that.

I didn't get the job offer :-)

This is why you always bring a coffee to presentations/meetings. Even if caffeine is not strong enough to stop you from falling asleep the activity of picking up a cup and taking a sip every few minutes will do.

I didn't get hooked on coffee until I started at Boeing. There's nothing like Boeing MIL-STD coffee. It was years before I realized that my Sunday morning headaches were caffeine withdrawal (I'm really not very smart).

I still like my coffee black and tasting like industrial waste.

Ha, that's funny. I drink an extra cup of coffee when I get to the office, to add to the one I have with breakfast at home.

I would get the worst headache on the weekends until I realized my body was expecting that second cup.

This is actually a serious problem to me.

Regardless of how interesting I find them, meetings at work trigger something deep inside me that cause me to sleep. It’s like a biological switch has been flipped. Cavemen talking around a fire into the night, getting ready for the long rest for the day ahead...

Sometimes I fall into a fugue in which I am semi-aware and a dream fills in part of the speech of meetings. I hear the most bizarre things when that happens, and worst of all, it makes sense!

I don’t have any sleep issues aside from this.

Standing up sometimes helps but cannot always be done.

What convinces you that you don't have sleep issues? You can appear to get enough sleep but he lacking in REM sleep, for example.

I have the same problem as your parent, and I'm convinced I don't have the usual sleep issues for several reasons.

1) I'm very sensitive of lack of sleep, and so I take having 8-hours or more of good sleep extremely seriously. 2) Most days I don't have any sudden sleep syndrome. 3) I've had cases of sudden extreme sleepiness for no particular reason since I was a child. The only thing in common I can think of in this cases is being indoors.

I never thought about it before, but I might have a case of narcolepsy or something similar.

I thought I was the only person with a serious case of useless-meeting narcolepsy.

Keeping relatively active helps, just like taking walks roughly every hour at minimum during work. If I'm absolutely going to sleep I'll stop paying attention and focus on my work, but then I'll miss opportunities to talk when needed.

I'll owe my career to anyone who can find a solution.

Maybe an airliner-grade seat?

Ditto.

Hate meetings as I know I will be doing all the tricks to stay awake. Pinching my legs, rotating feet, shifting about, hoping my drink lasts...

Which is why I hate meetings that are longer than 15 minutes. Hardly any need to be any longer. If they do then they are workshops, not meetings.

I get quite frustrated and often walk out before they finish as often a possible solution and plan has been decided on quite quickly, then people realise they got another 45 minutes to go of the booked meeting so might as well discuss another subject or worse: guessing hypothetical responses to what might happen after the meeting.

No, let's just quickly do what we just all decided was the best plan. If that doesn't work, let's talk again. Most of the time it will work and we saved a lot of wasted time. And frustrations.

I don't actually hate meetings. I just hate long meetings. 1 hour is a long meeting.

Cheerios (or some similarly nibbleable vittle). Eat one unit at a time, and space it out at minute intervals or so. That completely solved my mtg / conference / lecture narcolepsy problem.

Maybe don't see meetings as "opportunities to talk?" If that's all they are at your company, pushing for clear agendas and strong meeting facilitation might work.

> meetings at work trigger something deep inside me that cause me to sleep

I get this, though I know that it is in part because I don't get enough good sleep often (due to a mix of insomnia & bad sleep as symptoms of being a bit bi-polar, and life just being too darn busy) even at times when I am feeling well rested & wide awake it still happens.

A meeting room full of people, even the big "board room", tends to be warmer and cosier than our usual open-plan office which is definitely part of what causes the effect.

Also, the start of a meeting that I'm not running is a point where the brain shuts off a bit: I'm no longer concentrating on my work but there is nothing else to take my attention while waiting for others to file-/dial-in or the chair to get things started. Normally when I down tools it is to do something else, for instance my lunch-time march in the fresh air, rather than to just sit and stop for a moment in a warm room. Of course there is "networking" going on rather than it being completely dead time, but that isn't the same as concentrating on a work task or physically doing something.

I'm not a doctor, so please take this with a truck load of salt, but you may want to get tested for sleep apnea. You can apparently go a full night of sleep, waking up seemingly well rested, and then your body just shuts down to sleep all of a sudden because it turns out you barely slept at all. Snoring is a symptom apparently, but even if you don't snore it might be worth getting tested.

I doubt it. I nod off in meetings all the time. It's that 10 o clock marker after I've had some carbs at ~9am. I want to snooze then naturally.

My 2 "weird" tricks for sleepy meetings:

1) Be engaged. Take notes, ask questions.

2) If #1 fails, see how long I can hold my breath in...

Not sure if this is true, but I suspect certain sounds make me sleepy, such as the sound of airplane engines in the cabin, some projectors or airconditioning units. On most airplanes, it is near impossible for me to stay awake.

I call it the "Powerpoint nap".

It's not just the interestingness, but the lack of engagement. When that meeting starts, your brain is likely shutting off the flow of orexin. That orexin may have been the only thing keeping you awake. You get bored or disengaged; you conk out.

I'd guess, just from hearing that short description, that you don't get much natural sunlight in your workplace, the meetings are happening just after lunchtime, between 1 and 4 PM, and that you have some amount of sleep disorder that would be almost trivially manageable if your medical insurance plan were more reasonable. You can't drive more than a few hours without getting sleepy. On planes, trains, or buses, you conk out almost immediately, and somehow wake up just before arriving at your destination. But you don't fall asleep during movies.

Schedule a visit with a sleep specialist in the first week of January, after your deductible resets, and get a sleep study done. If you get a prescription for a CPAP, or some other durable medical equipment, buy it outright, and send a copy of the receipt to your insurer. Do not rent. If you have been putting off any other medical treatments, get them done next year too. If you can't hit your deductible with a sleep study and CPAP on the books, you probably never will.

Seems a bit of a stretch to assume the guy has _sleep apnea_ if he nods off during a likely pointless meeting. If he's passing out at his desk, then perhaps.

I assume nothing. Sleep apnea is simply one of the most common sleep disorders, and one of the easiest to treat, so it makes sense to test it out first. The sleep study required to do so will also reveal most other sleep problems that are not caused by apneas.

Falling asleep involuntarily in the middle of the day is not normal, regardless of the circumstances. Sleep problems can lead to heart problems, and preventable deaths.

I think the sleepiness in meetings is mostly related to lack of fresh air. I remember reading some articles that the air during meetings (talking about physical meetings in rooms here) has a very high CO2 count.

Using this method has greatly increased my sleeping on trans-Atlantic flights.

I actually get somewhat excited over the mediocre B movies I would otherwise never watch outside of an Economy seat naptime.

I get drunk

If that face recognition software is of the same quality as usual flight infotainment systems I think we are pretty safe.

I'll just take care to bring either chewing gums or tape. Problem solved

I'm convinced they will be declared dangerous goods in no time and allowed only in checked in luggage...

This isn't recognizing your specific face, it's about watching your general expressions.

Many modern cars already have something like this to see if you're falling sleeping while behind the wheel and will start vibrating the seats and steering while sounding alarms to get you alert again.

That being said, it's definitely over engineered compared to a "are you still active" button on the screen.

You are ignoring the argument. You are in fact building the strawman for an excuse to point cameras at everyone for the duration of the flight.

Clarification of the difference between recognition and general detection is not an argument for or against, though perhaps you should re-read my last sentence for my position.

Your post is making the mistake that, just because all this function needs is detection, that therefore this is the only thing it's actually doing. "What this is about is..."

This isn't about detection and isn't about triggering a sleep mode at all. It's not even about over-engineering for this particular function, because this particular function is not the point. What it's actually about is doing everything they can conceivably think of to monetize engagement tracking, while continuously pointing a camera at your face as you watch movies and adds.

Those are some wild assumptions. You're discussing an entirely different topic about cameras and privacy that I never mentioned.

It doesn't make my post a mistake for not accounting for every last thought you had about a different conversation. And if you need it to be clear, by over-engineered I do consider these unnecessary and unwanted.

And you get to pay them for it!

Don't worry, the algorithm only checks if you're asleep. By algorithm I mean outsourced workers in 3rd world call center, that is until our actual algorithm starts producing better results.

oh, so it's only 90% as awful as it sounds. Guess that's fine, then.

]This isn't recognizing your specific face,

Can you source this claim? Unless you are part of the engineering or monetization team of this project, I don't understand how you'd know this.

The other intended function is to measure & monetize viewer engagement and sentiment, so that IFE can offer personalized ads as an additional revenue stream for the airlines.

I was in a taxi in Japan with a TV screen in the headrests. It started with a message saying it uses facial recognition to tell if you are male or female, in order to provide you with the most relevant content, where the content was entirely advertising.

Your future is now.

So a camera records your face to send the pictures to God knows whose server and your preferences are dictated based on your assumed gender instead of being asked for...

Yep! You don't get asked or consent to anything either, it just happens. Pretty untoward.

Do you remember which taxi group that was? I live in Japan and haven’t noticed that yet

At the very least Nihon Koutsuu (日本交通) [1] does this.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Kotsu

I also a similar message in a Koutsuu but it was something about "Watching you face to see if you find the content engaging".

I guess they think they can keep tailing the information to you until you can't seem to look away? Very creepy.

I would immediately switch to another cab.

I must admit, when travelling I sort of accept a lower level of privacy. Other people who probably have location, purchase, or photographic data about my trip

  All the governments and airports involved of course
  Star Bucks saw my credit card appear for the first time across HK and Japan, hopefully the last time
  JR Rail Companies, all of the train stations
  NaviTime, the transit app company
  Google would know pretty much everything about my trip, GMaps was very helpful.
  My Bank would have a bunch of data
  The 7/11s, Lawsons, FamilyMarts and their payment providers/banks
  My Bank knows everything I did
  Instagram probably has more location data than it should
  SoftBank wifi saw me travel across the continent, there was almost nowhere safe from a SoftBank SSID and I'm sure they keep track.

The list likely goes on. It's almost futile, but not quite. I did my best to be cognizant, but unless you become a hermit in the hills I don't think you can avoid it.

Please don’t use code blocks for any sort of text other than code. They’re nearly unreadable on mobile.

Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. If you want to object to websites that allow codeblocks don't visit those websites, and if you do bring inferior devices to read with then don't complain.

HN is one of the most readable websites out there as of today and the degree of bitching about details such as these is infuriating, just look at the ad plastered animated bs you see elsewhere and then realize how trivial this particular gripe is.

Rendering is mostly a client side affair, you have all the control you need to make it look any way you want.

Please don't blame the commenter. Criticise the people behind HN for introducing this user hostile design and refusing to fix it for many years.

You can get an extension/userstyle for your browser so that code blocks will not bother you anymore.

It's not 'user hostile', at worst it is 'device hostile' and HN has plenty of mobile adapted clones out there.

For instance:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidr...

And plenty of others.

The 'people behind HN' are fewer in number than you would likely guess and are working hard to keep the community on the rails, on top of being responsible for the development. It is not as though they are drowning in capacity.

Of the options available, I thought this was the most reasonable. The markup available doesn't make it particularly easy to do lists on HN. It's either a codeblock to get the list items close, or one line per paragraph that takes up lots of vertical room.

I don't care. I think that even if it is unavoidable it is very much worthwhile to resist and to indicate as early and as often as possible what is and is not acceptable. The only times when it is worth giving up some of your privacy is (1) when it is with your active consent and (2) when there is a tangible benefit to you and (3) as a result you are not causing 'collateral damage' to the privacy of others (who have not given their consent). Privacy is a great good and giving it up should be done very carefully lest we all end up regretting this in ways that can not be undone.

It must be my overactive imagination but I can see so many ways in which this data can be abused that there is no possible upside that I'm willing to trade for. Consent withdrawn and if the last taxi is outfitted with facial recognition software I'll be happy to walk.

Yeah, next time I’ll just hang My jacket over it.

I haven’t seen it have any effect on what is playing. Maybe I should look more grumpy until it’s actually showing me interesting advertisments.

I didn’t expect for a minute it would actually work in real-time. Maybe they record the footage and have humans analyse it and try make more engaging commercials in the future?

It’s Japan and sadly it’s become incredibly outdated technologically. I’m not sure many people realise this. I was shocked at what I saw quite frankly.

Sorry I don't recall the name, but I was in Sapporo, and the taxi was an odd shape compared to the others. Like a black hatchback with a sliding side door that opened automatically, unlike the Toyota Crowns I normally saw.

Similar to this, if not perhaps exactly this: http://hokkaidotaxi.com/category/sapporo-taxi-cab/

NY taxis have adverts in them. I therefore use uber in NY.

I saw an NHK video on YouTube that talks about vending machines with the same feature. It uses your face to determine your gender and age range, and then recommends a drink for you.

There must be some Japanese company that is pushing this technology hard.

the airline should already know exactly who is sitting in the seat for personalised ads.

Engagement and sentiment in what they are watching would be another thing though

The whole point of inflight movies is to fall asleep in front of them.

it a very good idea.. for advertisers. because likes are a thing of the past, now we will display ads and collect facial expressions and emotions in real time :D

And pause the ad if the person is not looking.

I think you meant increase the volume.

> This could be the worst idea ever. Have cameras pointed at every flyer for the duration of the flight, for the incredibly minor benefit of stopping your movie

This seems to be uniform across all surveillance technology. The purported convenience is so laughably minor that it's almost a parody.

Like Alexa - people are willing to have a Big Brother-esque speaker inside their homes for the convenience of playing some music? Is that all it takes?

Pretty much.

To be fair, everybody who has Alexa already has a phone constantly with them everywhere. So it's just one extra microphone, not something completely different.

However, a smartphone is more transparent, relatively, over what it does. Not so much with Alexa.

Not sure what specifically you mean. Most smartphones today come with one of the assistants (Google, Siri, Alexa, or Bixby) turned on by default.

Not sure if these are just uneducated posts or astro-turfing...

Astro-turfing for what? I guess this falls into the "uneducated" category. From my apparently uneducated perspective, phones need to be a concern if you're worried about your voice and activities being recorded. Most users have no idea that, for example, Google Assistant is always listening on Pixel.

Siri is not enabled by default, they use a different approach to get users to opt in. Step 8: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202033 has a much bigger button to enable Siri, but users are given a choice and skipping Siri takes less time so it’s easier if you’re not going to use it.

Completely deactivate it

If you choose to disable Google Assistant completely, follow these steps:

    Open the Google app and select Menu (the three bars)
    go to Settings
    Google Assistant section click Settings > Phone and disable the Assistant option

I have a custom domain and disabled it for my family:

Switch off Google Assistant (for entire custom domain) Click Search and Assistant. Tip: Scroll to see all services. ... Control who uses Search and Assistant in your organization

    At the left, select the organizational unit.
    Select On or Off.
    To keep the service turned on or off even when the service is turned on or off for the parent organizational unit, click Override.

..which you can turn off or disable..

What fraction of iPhone users do you think have turned off Siri? Based on my circle, it's zero. Android seems a bit more complicated because registration for Samsung or Amazon might be decoupled from device setup, but I'd imagine those are mostly turned on. So most people do have an always or nearly always on microphone in their pocket as the post higher up was trying to point out.

Anecdata, but most of my friends that have iPhones has Siri enabled indeed, but the minority that is aware of the "Hey Siri" feature (the only thing that needs an always-on mic) has not enabled it. Most of them find it creepy.

Almost none of my family members understand the implications of the voice assistant let alone know how to turn it off. You’re a techy type and are thinking my uncles or grandparents operate at your level.

Can you?

No matter how many damn Google Assistant settings I disable in how many fractal menus, it STILL "helpfully" pops up if I say out loud "ok google"!

Like, "heyy I noticed you're trying to talk to me though I'm disabled, would you like to enable me?"

Stop spying on me you piece of malware.

What kind of Android do you have? Are you sure you went through all the settings?

And, still, I can install LineageOS or other privacy-respecting systems on my phone. We don't have any custom firmware for an Echo or Alexa yet (to the best of my knowledge.)

The number of phones actually supported by lineageOS is a rounding error, unless you count unofficial incomplete builds by random untrusted people on some forum.

Disabling Google Assistant was trivial on my Android One/Google Fi phone. It was one of the first things I did.

A smartphone is more transparent than a device explicitly designed and advertised to record audio in entire rooms? Or did you mean the smartphones signal more system status?

In my experience a lot of people have privacy concerns over the speakers, and underestimate the smartphone.

I meant that security provisions for smartphones are way better than for Alexa type devices.

People do underestimate the smartphone, but I feel the problem with smart speakers is even more pronounced. I mean, voice is the primary interface for a smart speaker.

Phones can’t hear very well from your pocket. Try recording something with the phone in your pocket.

Two wrongs don't make a right, and I make sure to disable all voice commands from my smartphone (which is admittedly useless if my device is compromised because I'd need a hardware killswitch, but it's a start). On the other hand those assistants' whole purpose is to work with voice controls, they're useless without them.

It's not completely different but it's far from completely the same in my opinion.

That's the thing - smartphones are surveillance devices as well, but their utility makes them a necessity. It's possible to argue that you'd submit to the surveillance if you're getting all that you get from a smartphone.

But a smart speaker just plays some music and tells you the weather. It's not nearly enough utility to be worth the privacy risks.

To you maybe, but not for everyone. I get lots of utility out of my Echo (alarms, music, checking the weather, controlling lights, etc.) that I'm fine with some random Amazon contractor listening to my commands to Alexa.

And if you are worried about the companies lying about not recording 24/7 why do you trust them to disable the recording done by assistants on your phone?

The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms.

I'm 100% fine being obscured and mysterious if it means corporations and the government aren't recording every thing I do.

Don’t forget safety, were often told it’s to monitor bad guys or people breaking the law.

Australia is great at this, see the new “Phone use while driving cameras”, insane.

As a person who primarily walks and bikes to get around I am very okay with whatever measures are necessary to get phone drivers off the road.

We live in the safest world we have ever lived in yet it amazes me the willingness people have to give up privacy and Liberty under the guise of a marginal increase in "safety"

Pedestrian and cyclist deaths in the US are at a thirty year high: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-traffic-fatalities/pe...

But at the end of the day it's a cultural thing— this is the same America that rejects any form of common sense gun control because liberty is more important than kids not shooting themselves in their own homes.

After nearly 5 decades of declining traffic fatalities, the number has been increasing (at least in NL) for the past 3, with mobile use being one of the main drivers. I don't like surveillance everywhere, but I like people playing with their phones while driving even less, so I personally can't wait for those camera's to be anywhere.

Also, my Tesla is filming constantly while I drive, so that's a much bigger deal.

You just proved his point frighteningly.

I’m also a cyclist, but I know there would be much safer ways of making this a reality if it’s actually a big problem.

For example in Japan the car navigation system can only be used while the car is in park. This would be more effective then using cameras which will only be semi-perfect and still people will try use their phone anyway.

There are thousands of speed cameras in Australia, people still speed all the time and time from high speed crashes.

Voice control of smart devices is extremely convenient. I can only imagine what a quality of life improvement it is for someone with physical disabilities.

Right, convenient for some, and I empathize with that use case. But why must we all be subjected to Big Brother's unblinking, creepy-as-fuck stare?

And why must all the data enabling the convenience be ripped away from my exclusive control and sent back to some centralized store?

Think back 200,000 years when modern humans first appeared. That is less than 20,000 generations of humans where for a long time, it was kill or be killed.

Think back to about a thousand years ago. That is less than 100 generations where for a long time, slavery and serfdom were common.

"Big Brother" is nothing more than a tool for the apex of the pyramid of human society. This is how "they" are able to get away with molesting hundreds of children while Joe who takes a drunken piss in the park at midnight is classified a sex offender for life.

So if you understand from _that_ perspective, it makes perfect sense. However, in contrast to every other time before, today the commoner "feels" like they are free. This changes the way they think and speak. The commoners don't feel inferior to the apex of humanity's pyramid. I expect if we get too far out of line, we'll be reminded.

Don't buy Alexa? I agree with you with regards to facial recognition, but expanding your views to optional smart home tech seems fairly vindictive.

Or have any friends that want to buy one. I have one friend who's pretty in to home automation. Fortunately he doesn't host get togethers very often, but I've seriously considered declining invitations before because I don't want to be in a house with all that crap in it.

> I've seriously considered declining invitations before because I don't want to be in a house with all that crap in it.

Why did you end up not declining them after all? (if I understand your "considered" wording correctly)

I'm not really sure how to answer that. I guess it amounts to peer pressure. If you're up against a group that has already decided that these kinds of devices aren't a problem, it's hard to articulate an argument against subjecting yourself to it that they find convincing.

And doesn't this perfectly demonstrate the issue with the "just don't buy one" argument? It's still _possible_ to make choices about your privacy (ex. don't get a smart phone, don't buy a smart speaker, etc.) but it requires progressively more conviction as acceptance of this kind of tech becomes mainstream.

That's true. I guess I live in a bubble with people who are aware of the surveillance aspects and so choose not to use smart devices.

> ... as acceptance of this kind of tech becomes mainstream.

It's not a foregone conclusion that will happen.

Recent weeks has shown increased mainstream media covering privacy aspects - often through the lens of creepy Facebook/Google/Amazon.

So it's definitely possible there will be sufficient push back to stop this crap becoming too ubiquitous.

I have, and do, decline to attend events, dinners, parties at home where people refuse to depower their devices. Many were taken aback, and took it as a cue to examine their own stance. You start by having a spine, and follow through with action, while explaining your stance in a thoughtful way. The change starts with us.

Obviously I'll avoid purchasing optional "smart" devices that send my data everywhere, outside of my control. The problem is mass acceptance of ubiquitous surveillance, and those promoting and pushing it. I guess that means I will have to do my best to avoid visiting anyone who happens to have an Alexa (or whatever) hiding somewhere.

Even Google's devices chief, Rick Osterloh, says people using his product should warn guests that their conversations are being recorded. To his credit, he even does so(!):

https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/google-exec-warn-yo...

> “Does the owner of a home need to disclose to a guest? I would and do when someone enters into my home, and it’s probably something that the products themselves should try to indicate,” Osterloh said.

Osterloh hits on the truly insidious thing about about microphones -- they never indicate when they are listening and sending your data out of your control. (Camera LEDs also certainly cannot be trusted, but I digress).

To be clear, again, I have full empathy for anyone needing the conveniences this technology promises. I have zero empathy for the companies, "officials", and "authorities" who claim that they must exfiltrate my data so that it can be used for adding convenience, or security, or safety or whatever. It is unnecessary. Smart, creative engineers have proven they can do pretty amazing things with data processed locally, with no exfiltration required. Let them do their job, and let my personal data stay under my exclusive control.

I used to attribute this laziness to incompetence, but the advertising industry has proven over and over and over (decades!) that they are openly and unrepentantly hostile to users. They are malicious. I cannot and will never again trust them.

Getting a Google home isn't mandatory, at least not yet. I personally use mine almost exclusively as an alarm clock. I have a tendency to wake up several times a night to check if I remembered to set an alarm, it's probably an anxiety thing. So I cast around my room for my glasses or press my face against my alarm clock or cell phone. Now when I wake up I just ask Google and it cheerfully informs me of the time. I also put a smart light bulb in my bedside lamp. In return Google may be able to gain some insight into my sleeping habits, and if I ever get back to having sex they can listen to that too.

>Like Alexa - people are willing to have a Big Brother-esque speaker inside their homes for the convenience of playing some music? Is that all it takes?

Here's my workaround: my smart speaker is tied to the lightswitch. It's only on when I'm in that room and if Google can somehow make use of the fact I stream a podcast or the local NPR station while bathing and shaving more power to them.

Most people already carry a Big Brother-esque device with a camera and microphone in their pockets everywhere they go.

You can completely disable Siri or whatever your device's equivalent is. The entire purpose of Alexa is to be listening all the time. They're not equivalent.

Can you prove that you've disabled it? That it's not listening all the time and logging interesting sounds?

I don't see a huge difference between a speaker that's designed to have an always-on mic listening for a code-word and we're just going to trust that it doesn't log anything unless it hears that codeword, and a phone that's designed to have the same, but has a software option to turn it off.

Either way, we're trusting that the device isn't abusing the fact that it has a mic.

No, I can't prove that it's disabled, but that doesn't matter much. There are people out there who probably could and would be more than happy to publish their results if they did.

More importantly, the difference is in intent. I don't intend to carry around a device that's always listening to me. Anyone with an Alexa device is intentionally inviting Amazon to listen to every word spoken in (part of) their home.

Right but you just mentioned siri, which is included on every iphone. People do carry that around and don't expect it to be listening.

It is always listening. A coworker has Siri enabled and it regularly interrupts meetings because it thought some random noise was a wake word. It then proceeds to do whatever Siri does, which I assume involves sending whatever it hears after that point back to Apple.

I carry around and iPhone where I've done my best to completely disable Siri so I expect it not to be listening. That's antithetical to the use-case of Alexa and similar devices.

But the intent isn't there for Amazon to listen to everything you say - which is why hotword detection is done locally on Alexa and only then is an audio stream sent to their servers.

I have a coworker who has Siri enabled on his phone. It regularly wakes up and starts recording seemingly at random. Maybe "always listening" isn't the correct phrasing. "It might be listening at any time" might be better.

Sure, but the intent is there to not do that.

> ... the intent is there to not do that.

For now. Or so we're told.

Unless a court order (or bribed employee) decides otherwise. ;)

But those are infinitely more useful than a smart speaker.

Of course, but the convenience of a smartphone does outweigh the potential surveillance. I getwork done on my phone, book cabs and flight tickets, get food delivered. I've tried living without my smartphone but it's not feasible.

A smart speaker I can live without all my life

And adding things to my shopping list!

Great, now I have to travel with sticky notes.

Why is it so hard to believe that that is the intended purpose? The feature is small yet a nice touch and I can't think of any sinister usage of adding this technology (I'm sure they have hidden cameras/microphones/facial recognition at the gate for security, anyway).

Are you serious? So now private entities have your facial information?

You do remember you've been showing your passport to these "private entitites" with your photo and personal details for decades?

Apples and oranges

It sounds like the author is misunderstanding a bit. This isn't facial recognition, it's facial detection. Distinguishing a sleeping face and an awake face doesn't require the face to be identified. Also, I'd be shocked if there aren't already cameras covering every square inch of modern airplane cabins. Also also, you can't get on a plane without showing ID and boarding pass with a seat number, so it's not like they don't already know exactly who is sitting where.

> I'd be shocked if there aren't already cameras covering every square inch of modern airplane cabins

Now that you mention it, I don’t recall ever seeing a camera on an airplane before. I see them on busses and trains, airports and stations. But not in aircraft cabins. If they’re there, they must be better hidden than in other places.

Yeah it seems like one of the few places people would be willing to trade some privacy for security, and they aren't doing it. Maybe because they don't want to end the mile high club.

It's probably a financial decision, everything about modern commercial aircraft is designed around getting the cheapest tickets possible.

IIRC some dude found a camera right next to the screen before him. Apparently those cams are pretty well known—just search for ‘plane seat camera’.

E.g. cams being tested, from eleven years ago: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/more_on_airpl...

I believe they're included as standard in the infotainment systems on modern aircraft. It's up to the airline if they decide to use it or not.

I was flying through Schiphol airport and they had facial recognition entering the gate. It scanned my face and then brought up my passport.

Facial recognition is already here and in some capacity being used for flight travel.

For customs or the airline?

> Have cameras pointed at every flyer for the duration of the flight, for the incredibly minor benefit of stopping your movie

Besides, all these electronic devices have a high environmental impact, for virtually no benefits. It makes you wonder how we're going to decrease our CO2 emissions...

I'm pretty sure the cost of even manufacturing (let alone just operating) these screens pales in comparison to the cost of, you know, igniting hydrocarbons to make a giant airplane fly in the air at hundreds of miles an hour.

yes, but at least travelling by plane serves some purpose, compared to let say, having a camera checking whether i'm sleeping or not.

It sounds like they were asked to invent a way to record passengers

Finally! A use for all those free webcam covers I keep getting at trade shows. You're welcome, fellow passengers. Or failing that there's always duct tape.

What would be far more helpful is to just turn off screens that the person hasn't interacted with. I've been on too many late night flights where the screens for empty seats, or for people who are staring at their iPad have made it really hard to sleep(eye masks are uncomfortable for me). I've even seen people actively trying to sleep with the full brightness screen right in front of them because it's not obvious at all how to turn them off(usually you have to find the brightness menu and press the down button a dozen times).

There are already cameras in some seatback systems although airlines have denied using them.

https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/seatback-cameras-designed...

Since I know nothing about airline electrical systems, movie deals the airline might have made etc. I wonder if it might not be beneficial to the airline if it manages to turn off a small number of unused movies during a flight.

Just wait until they lobby the FAA to make this mandatory in all flights for your safety and make it a federal crime ti block the camera.

Idk what economy cabins these people are sitting in but those seats look at least business-sized to me. No US airline will be sticking something that big in economy. And facial-recog? Airlines are moving away from putting anything in the seat-backs at all and now you wanna put expensive camera tech in there?

That's exactly what I was thinking. This seems like a rich person's idea of what "economy" seating is, having never sat in one of those seats for the past couple decades.

They'll find out some way to sell/use the data and the cameras will pay for themselves.

Besides, if airlines are ripping out TVs, relatively low capital cost, from backseats of very expensive aircraft I doubt its because of the cost of the TVs.

Maybe the TVs need hefty wiring for the power. Maybe they break often with kids punching them. But the cameras might not have that many problems, and therefore be cheap (besides, with a a wide angle lens, one can deal with many passengers)

Weight is the primary motivator for removing setback entertainment systems. Why have them, when most passengers have iPads or laptops. A WAP weighs less than several hundred "TV" screens and the supporting wiring.

The primary reason I heard was the copper, apparently the weight of the screen is minimal compared to the wiring it takes to set up each seat, I doubt a camera would be any different.

The seats are big but not that big. They pulled the ol' "everything looks bigger with a small woman for scale" trick. Look at the picture of the guy sitting in the seat facing away from the camera. It looks like he's leaning right in order to fit in the chair and they moved the camera to the ~4:00 position in order to make that not show. They might not be "true economy" small but these seats certainly aren't large.

They show them in a 2-2 configuration, though. No airline uses that configuration in economy unless it's a small regional jet.

Some A350s like the NEOs run a 2-4-2 config. I think the A380s do too.

A380s are 2-4-2 on the upper deck economy, 3-4-3 on the lower deck.

And it looks like the original floor plans for the 350-900 were 2-4-2 but all the floor plans I can find from airlines and booking sites are 3-3-3 (the odd premium economy looks to be 2-4-2 but not regular economy).

Air Caraibes goes 3-4-3 in its A350-900. That's very tight, as the A350 is really intended to be 3-3-3 in economy.

https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Caraibes/Air_Caraibes_...

Frenchbee also run them 3-4-3: https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/French_bee_Airlines/French...

Unlike Lufthansa which runs them 3-3-3: https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Lufthansa/Lufthansa_Airbus...

Interestingly enough that means they're 32'' pitch 16'' width, where most airlines run those 31'' 17''. So depending on your body size, one can be worse than the other...

A330s and A330NEOs are usually 2-4-2, though sometimes 3-3-3 in the cheapest LCCs. A350s are usually 3-3-3 in economy, with the cheapest LCCs going 3-4-3.

The seats themselves look fine, but the amount of legroom that the model has is laughable. The only person I fly with who can cross her legs on an airplane like that is my 3 year old daughter.

The seats seem wide to me.

They're isolated in a display booth. so nothing in front of the seat.

It wouldn't sell, but they should've really displayed them with a delimiter/wall/something in front, in usual economy spacing, if they were going for authenticity. I understand why they wouldn't/didn't.

They're for long-haul premium economy. Those are already 2-4-2 on larger jets vs 3-4-3 or 2-5-2 in the steerage.

Nowhere in the article does it mention these are specifically for "premium" economy, these seats are, according to the article, supposedly meant for your run-of-the-mill economy cabin.

CNN is just wrong, though. These are being marketed as premium economy seats.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/the-future-of-premium-economy/

https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2019/12/10/wings-out-interspac...

CNN got this wrong, and the rest of the major press is citing CNN as the source.

But if you look, you can see that these seats are clearly not economy seats -- they're too wide, and they have all the premium economy trappings (doubled armrests, drink tables, etc.)

Don't blame me ;) Perhaps the user I replied to should have provided citations. I suspect you're not wrong, but neither of those two sources I'd recognise as "notable".

As much as I enjoy being a part of these sorts of conversations, I don't sit down with the intention of writing a dissertation whenever I disseminate information.

Anyway, those two blogs the parent posted are pretty well known and respected in the avgeek community.

Those are both pretty well-known and well-regarded sources in the community.

Unsurprisingly, knowledge is lost when moving to the mass media

Those look like Premium Economy seats based on their generous width, not the crushing 17"-and-change width of typical Economy seats.

All the pictures are of women in the seats. Men often have broader shoulders and larger upper arms. If I sit next to another man, we sometimes make contact on the upper arms for most the flight. The wings seem to take up a couple inches themselves, so it could become too cramped horizontally to be comfortable.

I laughed at her sitting cross-legged on the bulkhead row. Try that just one row back, sister.

A friends has been one of those models for airline print ads. She also is incredibly petite due to a digestive issue that keeps her from digesting calories and nutrients properly. It's a bit disturbing that she's so popular for that type of advertising.

Yup, she's tiny and those wings look like they take up a whole bunch of shoulder-space.

As a person with very broad shoulders... I cringed when I saw these seats, heh. Usually I fold in a little bit for larger people, but on Southwest other large people get the idea that sitting next to me might not be a comfortable experience for either of us and avoid me. And if someone is being ride and I expand my shoulders they can literally be in 1/4 to 1/3 of my neighbors seat. Oh you leaned forward? Allow me to show you my true form, heh. Usually get seats with extra leg room and use that to occupy less space and not make my seat neighbor uncomfortable.

The rendering seems to be 2-2 seating, which is definitely more of a business class configuration.

There are a couple of wide body configurations that have 2x3x2 seating in economy, but I'm a little incredulous too. Unless they are pretending that's a regional jet :)

2-3-2 in Economy seems to be a very common inter-continental configuration.

Maybe in a premium economy configuration. It's definitely not common/standard in regular economy (or even an economy plus a couple extra inches of legroom) configuration.

I see it all the time - for example https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...

That's a 767. I fly United about 75,000 miles a year and I'm not sure the last time I've ever been on a 767. It's been a long time. This is a fairly typical 777 seat map (without Premium Economy). https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/aircraf...

I also end up flying a lot of 737s which are 6 across in economy.

My 767 is newly refitted with the Polaris business class - it can't be that much of a weird relic! Your example is the old pre-Polaris business class.

It may be just the routes I fly. I'm mostly 737s or 757s, or the odd 777 (usually going to Asia). I do see I have a 787 on my next trip to Europe but that's 9 across in Economy Plus/Economy. (Premium Economy is 7 across.)

Nice breakdown of the UA fleet here: https://www.planespotters.net/airline/United-Airlines

Looks like 767s are ~28% of their current fleet's widebodies.

I was on a 767 from Philadelphia to Zurich about two months ago with American Airlines. But man it was an awful experience. Overnight flight with shared TVs playing an action movie with lots of flashing lights and explosions combined with outdated seats and no individual climate controls meant I landed in Zurich at 8am having gotten no sleep the whole flight.

At least Delta provides masks on their red-eye flights.

Some people are just determined to believe that their personal experience must be universal, facts be damned. You've just encountered one such. Every time I see that name I know it's going to be the same shtick.

On what airlines? The last time I flew economy in a 777 it was 2-5-2. I think more recently, 3-4-3 is common.

On 787s, 3-3-3 seems like the standard.

Not sure what Airbus is up to, but I'm guessing they're not selling many planes if their selling point is "higher fuel consumption for every economy passenger!"

767-300ER for example - United Airlines 80 which I use all the time to cross the Atlantic https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...

Ah, that makes sense. The 767s are on their way out (I guess United still uses them, though), so the days of 2-3-2 are nearing an end. 787s are all 3-3-3, I believe.

> The 767s are on their way out

Just after refurbishing them for their new business class in priority over other aircraft?

they look more like old school first class seats. the problem with sleeping on a plane has to do with circulation -- it's actually hard on the heart to pump blood from your feet with you're motionless for hours at a time on a plane. If they really wanted to solve this, they'd do one of two things:

1) they would shift the time of departure from 6p - midnight to 3 am. They'd let everyone sleep in a special part of the gate area which would close to passengers not on the flight. Passengers could also go on board the plane and sleep while it is at the gate if they preferred. About 30 minutes before departure everyone would be awakened and they would board. This would avoid having to arrive 2 hours ahead of time and the delayed departure would still get the passengers to their destination at a reasonable time.

2) they would get rid of the overhead section of the plane for redeye flights. They would stack horizontal chairs three high and everyone would be horizontal for the entire flight.

The bunk bed concept often surfaces but see https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/21713/4188

Yeah I know... I have impractical ideas about air travel. My other idea was to take the second level of a 747 and convert it to a gym. Instead of seats you’d have treadmills and at the far end would be showers. Anyone could “book” time in the gym for a fee. Imagine being able to go for a run on a 18 hour transpacific flight? Of course all this gets mooted by the starship... once we can get la to Singapore in 20 minutes who cares what the seat looks like?

I don't get why you're downvoted. I think it's a creative idea. But I don't think it will fly (pun intended).

Real estate (as in space) on a plane is probably the most expensive in the world. While airlines reserve space for (for example) a bar in business class (and to the best of my knowledge only in the A380) a gym would use too much space.

There's also the issue with turbulence to consider, which would make a gym (at least without significant adaptions to the machines) rather impractical.

Real estate and weight are the two most expensive things on planes, and two things gyms use extensively.

True; I didn't even consider the weight.

Well, originally, the upper deck of 747s was a lounge/bar. Which personally appeals to me a lot more than a gym does to be honest. :-)

Given the huge improvements in air travel safety over the past few decades, it probably makes sense to relax evacuation and seatbelt requirements a little bit in order to enable experimentation with bunks and other non-standard layouts.

I still think there's the issue with business - and first class travelers, which pay top $ to lie flat on long haul flights and are main revenue source of most airlines.

Offering a cheap (or at least significantly cheaper) option to lie flat would eat into their own revenue.

Well, and once you have lie-flat seating, I'm not sure how different that is from regular business class. Sure you could still maybe squeeze a few more seats in and offer cheaper food/booze. But the difference in the cost to the airline is probably going to be pretty slim.

I would pay a bit extra to have 30 minute's worth of 'horizontal time' in a small bunk for flights over 10 hours in duration. However I assume that because this isn't a thing already, someone else thought of it, did the calculations and worked out it wouldn't be profitable for the airline.

What are you going to do with 30 mins? Power nap?

Few people can manage that

I’ve wanted the “sleeper” flights for a while! I’ll bet a sleeping pod takes up a lot more space though.

Many airports near cities have noise curfews that disallow regularly scheduled departures and arrivals between 1 and 6am or something similar.

Seriously. Please no. I have extremely wide shoulders. I would literally not be able to sit in a seat like that without folding myself inward to an uncomfortable level.

I really liked seats arrangement in Helsinki public buses. Not sure how popular are they. But basic idea is that in a paired seat you have one seat shifted a bit to back. Because of that if there are two people sitting they don't rub their shoulders to one another and it feels much more spacious. Only picture that i could find :

https://depressingfinland.tumblr.com/post/59672293951/234937...

Now that is a really smart design hack!

The older model streetcars in Gothenburg, Sweden, have the same arrangement. These are from the 60s and are still in use.

Is the asocial behavior documented in the blog typical of Finland?

That's not asocial behavior, that's good public transit etiquette.

Judge for yourself:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RqdkHLU3G3E/Uy2b1KyScQI/AAAAAAAAAd...

http://finnishness.blogs.tamk.fi/files/2017/09/bussipysakki-...

https://www.linkbcit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Finland-b...

https://finnishcrashcourse.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/fpv0w...

The blog is called "depressing Finland" which is kind of a Finland meme. It's certainly played up on the Internet but it's got a kernel of truth. I have a couple of very good friends in Finland and I've visited the country and it's a lovely land filled with lovely people. But it's true they can be aloof to other people at first. My Finnish friend joked that Finnish people don't care about others until you get drunk with them, then you have a lifelong friend. That's actually true to an extent.

Finns can be very introverted, which leaves some more outgoing people with the feeling that Finns are anti- (or a-) social and depressed. That's not the case. The Finnish culture just values introversion, privacy, and polite public behavior. This contrasts sharply with the European meme of the loud, outgoing, and rude American, and the two cultures see each other in extremes and play up the differences for humor on the Internet.

Thanks for the explanation! I am always curious to learn about other cultures. TBF I am an introvert myself but it was interesting to see the behavior extended to the mainstream.

Germany is that way to a lesser extent. I know my German friends visiting the US find it very odd that people who do not know each other well (or at all) will greet each other when passing by. It seems superficial and fake to them.

To a lesser degree, I felt that way after moving to Southern Californa from the East coast: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cvzm3sZWAAETO_b.jpg:large

I'm from the Midwest and I find NYC and LA to be incredibly alienating for that reason. I'm surrounded by people but none of them acknowledge my existence. If I'm walking around my own downtown almost everyone who passes by will nod or wave or say "nice day isn't it?" just to be polite.

I held a door open for someone when I was in NYC last time, which turned into a big mistake. Everyone else hadn't been paying attention and when they saw me holding open the door they must have assumed I was a doorman and everyone flooded through the open door not giving me the chance to catch back up to my group. Meanwhile in the Midwest, if someone is a few steps behind you and you let the door close, they're going to be complaining about how rude you were for hours.

What ‘personal space’ looks like around the world: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/24...

Relatedly? "...an intact amygdala is necessary for feelings of discomfort following personal space violations, thus helping to automatically regulate interpersonal distance." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4123873/

(Also, for those curious: Space Invaders: Personal Space and Autism "...it is possible that a dysfunction in the amygdala contributes to problems in maintaining an appropriate social distance in autism." - https://www.iancommunity.org/ssc/personal-space-autism)

The Caparo T1 car uses about the same arrangement to fit two seats in a 1.5-seater space: https://i.imgur.com/NGKYiXO.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/l81kWBV.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/N5usbBu.jpg

To drop some personal anecdote..

By far the best sleep I've had on an aircraft was an Alitalia flight in the early 2000s, a 747 from Italy to Hong Kong, economy class. The upholstery was thin worn-down carpet, the seat felt like plywood with metal reinforcements in important places, hopes of in-flight entertainment were confined to headphones operated by a wheel-dial fixed the the seat, there was nothing as fancy as a button. But it was spacious, spacious enough to allow use of its utilitarian space having a nice sleep.

An unlikely benchmark, but a benchmark for getting it right. A simple seat, space to adjust legs, and an adjustable headrest. That's all. I am happy with carpet, plastic/fake leather padding is sticky and therefore uncomfortable, as well as taking up precious millimeters which add up. Carpet is fine.

Actual space on a plane is very expensive compared to making the seat look nicer (while still the same cramped). So it's unlikely you'll get to repeat that experience much in the future, unless you're willing to pay for business.

This reminds me of my favorite pet peeve with international flights. Even in economy you have more space for yourself and more storage space than on a domestic flight. However, they try to be nice and give you so much extra stuff like blankets, pillows, socks (!), sometimes even a little vanity kit with toothbrush and creams. Between that and all the brochures they cram into the little storage space that's available everything is crowded again. I wish we could at least get rid of the magazines and catalogs.

Maybe I just travel with too much stuff that I want easily available during a long flight...

Plastic/fake leather is easier to clean. Cloth seats will smell, will stain, and can even hold lice. I'd rather have the plastic material I can give a quick wipe down on before resting my head against it. The in-flight entertainment is nice but I could do with just a USB port to keep my phone or tablet going. Half the time the headphone jacks for the TVs are on the armrest in such a way that you risk breaking your cable because it sticks into your sitting area rather out the end of the armrest. Airlines are doing the thing now where there are no TVs and all of the movies are accessed via WiFi.

> In fitting with the trend towards more personalized, data-driven flying experiences, New Territory is keen to add facial recognition technology to the mix too.

Wow, marketing fluff much? They just want to add something to check for closed eyes. Not exactly facial recognition.

Seems like a normal PR piece turned into an 'article' in modern online journalism.

If these new seats actually help people sleep better it's great. Economy vs Business is not even comparable in terms of ability to sleep at least in terms of trans-Atlantic. I was lucky enough to get 2 trans-Atlantic (from midwest) trips in business where I had previously done economy normally and it was so relaxing and easy to sleep, for me.

It’s tough to defend CNN... but it has to recognize faces to do that right? :)

Depends on what you mean by "recognize faces".

It has to recognize that it's seeing a face and eyes, but it doesn't need to recognize that the face belongs to John Smith, Frequent Flyer #0123456789

What exactly is the privacy risk there?

The airline already knows who is sitting in the seat, and also their ff#

Who wants a camera pointed at their face for potentially 20+ hours?

People who use laptops all day?

I'd be willing to bet that a majority of HN readers have tape over their webcams.

Breastfeeding

"Top 20 politicians from <party you don't like> looking stupid in long-haul flights".

How do they know which party that would be? Facial recognition, obviously.

Wait, are you trying to talk me out of it or sell me on it?

I think people generally consider facial recognition meaning to recognize your face, not just that one exists.

This is one of those rare cases where it's helpful to conflate the two since, when considering privacy implications, the tolerance of one begets the other. In other words, recognition of individual facial features should be treated with as much caution as individual facial recognition.

It just has to detect them.

It's really easy to claim to make it easier to sleep in economy by adding a chair from short haul business class..

This doesn't fit in at all with making the seats as light and thin as possible to save weight and increase available space (for more legroom or more seats)

A much cheaper, smaller and simpler option would just have to have the head rest paddings that have small foldable wings that exist already on slightly more expensive airlines or premium economy.

Personally i dont feel like the flipping head rests provides enough support, to my head at all, and even less enough to support my bosy, so i really think the design here has some merits in this regard!

Yeah. They're better than nothing but not by a lot. My general solution is just to avoid red-eyes as much as possible these days (or upgrade) but it's not always possible.

I hate those headrests. They force my neck forward into an unnatural position making it impossible to sleep that way. I’d prefer no headrest at all.

If I am serious about sleeping on a flight, I have to rest forward on the food tray. This is also impossible sometimes, depending on the space and whether the seat is reclined.

Anyway, that’s just me. I’m not saying an airplane should be tailored to my personal needs. I just don’t think there’s a solution that satisfies everyone or aside from bunk beds, and good luck with that.

Exact same situation. I can't imagine how people can find headrests in airplane comfortable unless they're leaning back at a 180 degree angle and just using it as a pillow, or they have a completely flat head.

For people with round noggins, it just pushes our heads forward. Even trying to lean my seat back with the generous 2 degrees of space given, my head still tilts forward. Then right when I start dozing off, I get caught in a wake-sleep 60 second loop where I'm just about to fall asleep, but my head drops (since it's being pushed forward and my muscles spontaneously relax), then my body instantly wakes up to pull my head back up. This cycle gives me incredible neck pain.

They're torture devices. Just give me a flat seat with a slight lean back. The pictures in the article look good, but I know they're going to find some way to screw it up. They have to in order to push people to business class.

What I'd rather see is designs that make the middle seat more palatable.

There are more aircraft with 3 seats on each side now.

It's not perfect, but ideas that make the middle seat better via dedicated armrests, or offsetting it slightly back, would be welcome.

One supplier with some decent ideas: https://www.airlineseats.biz/for-passengers

It baffles me that non-middle seat passengers try to assert rights to middle seat armrests and consider themselves justified.

That seemed to get more common around the time picking the seat became a luxury add-on (e.g. basic economy vs economy on the US major carriers). Once folks felt they paid more for their aisle/window, they stopped caring about entitlements for the person in the middle.

I wonder if any of you ever tried sitting on the aisle. It’s a hazard there, constantly being hit by anything and anyone who passes by. No way I’m “resting” on that armrest and therefore I’ll lean towards the middle seat.

Do you prefer the middle seat to the aisle?

I think so.

Aisle lets you get up anytime you want, but also forces you to get up twice as much as the middle seat. But mainly in the middle seat you never have to be afraid of people bumping into you, which affects you for most of the flight.

I managed to extend my elbow into the aisle just as a flight attendant was rushing forward and the poor lady doubled over in pain from the impact. As a large guy, I felt pretty bad, and it's not the first time someone has made contact with my passing by.

The middle seat staggered lets people use the same armrest at different spots. That's a good idea

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1fe40a_b68668609cbc4cf59b...

Except it makes it even more annoying to get out for the window seat behind.

I've not been able to exit from the window seat without both of my seatmates getting up for some time. I don't see this setup as any worse when seat pitch is tight.

Congrats, you’re either not flying economy or you’re flying with small neighbors and you are small too.

In economy, a 6ft person will have their knees touching the seat in front of them. Getting out without them standing up will require straddling them like a mile-high stripper. Additionally, if you’re big (6ft 240lbs), getting between the economy seats when they’re empty is inconvenient and it requires weird bending over when the seats in front are reclined.

I imagine you've read something in my comment that isn't there. I didn't characterize economy as a good experience. I just said this seems no worse for exiting.

You can also see the middle seat is wider than the other two, creating some incentive where you might want it. And because of the backset, the row itself isn't wider.

Looks like a fundamentally acceptable design change, which will probably be white-anted out of deployment on cost, or fashion grounds.

I think seating in airlines demands regulation. I don't think we will see change here without it, because unlike Premium Economy and Business, where pricing differentiation justifies the spend (the increase in revenue outweighs the engineering costs significantly: Aircraft would be viable long haul solely based on Business and Premium already) there is no pricepoint increase in economy the airlines are willing to make, without being obligated to make it.

On the other hand, if an airline offered these seats, I'd definitely choose them over the competition.

Better seats might not drive more seat upgrades, but it might drive more traffic to your airline.

Absolutely agree. If the marginal cost of this on a seat during a refit which has to happen anyway is low, could happen and could be a deal-breaker once word leaks out. Cathay made economy cramped, people went to Emirates. This could be a fight back move to regain lost market share?

White-anted? Never heard this term before.

Sorry, accidentally used an Australianism. It means putting up a million minor issues behind your back and generally eroding belief in things like white ants (termites) attacking a wooden stump on your house. Secretly undermining.

similar to "death by bunny-bites" but I like the additional concept of "secretly undermining"

I dont see the point of regulation. Do you want to force everyone to pay higher plane tickets, so some people get more comfort?

Some people prefer to pay less and survive in economy class.

The problem is that IMO things are slowly getting to the point where it's a medical problem, especially for older people. And the median age of people in the US is slowly ticking upwards. Consider things like Deep-Vein Thrombosis for longer flights: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dvt/travel.html.

"Some airlines suggest pulling each knee up toward the chest and holding it there with your hands on your lower leg for 15 seconds, and repeat up to 10 times."

Most modern economy class seats have absolutely no room to do even these limited sorts of movements. And don't even get me started on how bad they are with someone with a disability. Plus, as someone else mentioned, some employers, etc. make you take the lowest cost flight as a matter of policy.

I think in a way this is like healthcare (the analogy is loose, I admit). Sure, some people, maybe even a majority of people can do fine with the unregulated version. But if it is actively dangerous to a smaller segment of the population, regulation will help bring it more in line with normalcy for that smaller segment.

Either they hired a very petite woman for the photos are these seats are way wider than the current standard. But I do have a fun fact as to why airplane seats are too narrow.

When they first started standardizing the seat width, the measured individuals hips to determine the seat width. The idea was that: ass goes in seat. The problem was that our shoulders tend to be wider than our hips. By the time the issue was discovered it was too late to make the seats wider.

I have no valid reason for why seats are still getting more narrow other than the airlines are greedy bastards barley making a profit.

I think you could start with your last sentence first.

She is the reporter who wrote this column. She is hired by CNN, not the manufacturer of the seats.

https://twitter.com/fl_street?lang=en

They need to get rid of the recline or have laws governing a sane distance between seatback and the next seats worst case distance. As someone that is 6'5" I literally have my knees fixed to the seatback in front of me and feet off the ground in most airlines economy seats -- the person in front of me choosing to go back even an inch means my kneecaps are bruised.

I've found most people don't enjoy being knee'd in the back constantly every time I move. I tend to more more frequently when uncomfortable due to my no leg space becoming negative leg space.

Any improvement to airline seats is welcome, but this won't address the biggest comfort issue for me which is the prolonged pressure on the posterior caused hours of sitting. I feel like airplane seats could benefit by using elements of office chair design.

If that's your main issue, you're very lucky... I wish I could worry about my posterior, but the constant pressure on the knees by the seat in front and the desperate search for a position where my legs will fit keep all my attention.

Sleeping is a pipe dream, of course. When I see headlines like this I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Airlines need a seat pitch regulation.

(and before anyone mentions that I could just pay more... no, I work at the public sector and our regulations don't let us to pay for any extras in planes because "austerity" and all that).

How tall are you?

Anyone over 6' has this problem.

197 cm (6' 5"). Very tall, although there are still people who have it worse...

Also 1.97m and it's truly miserable flying in most planes. I've come to terms with the fact that I will not sleep on flights.

I've always found the knees hitting the seat thing an amazing variation of human anatomy. My wife is 6' tall with long legs and will have 3 or more inches to spare on leg room, while I know people shorter than 5'10" who constantly complain about their knees hitting the seat in front of them.

It does seem like truly exceptionally tall people would have a reasonable disability accommodation claim to be put in premium economy if they really can't fit their legs in.

If you're of moderate height but have a fat backside that must push you forward into the seat in front.

Exactly same problem for me.

Someone mentioned in some other thread there is some airlines looking into having seats that when reclining, instead of pushing the backrest into the space behind you, your seat slides forward, and thereby tilting the backrest.

But this was met with great protests from others who think crushing long legged people´s knees is a god given right.

"If you don't want your knees crushed, you should have paid extra for one of the four seats with more leg room" "they were already taken? Tough luck"

I have found this is very seat dependent. I am very heavy and the Emirates A380 seat is by far the most comfortable for 10-14+ hour flights. Most planes are OK but the new Qantas 787 Economy seat for some reason is not.

The new Qantas 787 Premium Economy seat however is amazing. Among other things the whole seat tilts back slightly (including the base) and it has an adjustable height foot rest. It was a dream to sleep in and I'd consider paying for it (every flight I take is usually a 20+ hour trip, so..)

Ooh, the idea of the whole seat tilting back sounds fantastic. I suspect part of the reason I can never sleep on flights is because I constantly feel like I'm sliding forward out of the seat while trying to be comfortable. (The other reason, I suspect, is that I just can't sleep in a seated position.)

I've tried leaning my head against the window frame, but was worried that the vibration would scramble my brains while I slept.

All the seats need is wings for the headrest so I don't wake up as my head falls the instant I go to sleep.

> I've tried leaning my head against the window frame, but was worried that the vibration would scramble my brains while I slept

Hah, yeah, I've tried this too, but the vibrations make my nose and the inside of my ears tickle like hell!

> All the seats need is wings for the headrest so I don't wake up as my head falls the instant I go to sleep

Hmm, so, I've sat in seats that have had small "wings" at the side before, but the seats were still so upright that my head would still fall - what's needed is "wings", and a slight recline.

A lot of seats do have headrest wings. Sometimes they're on hinges, and it may not be obvious that they're there.

wish they made double or triple decker capsule hotel style beds for long flights.

I’d love a capsule-hotel-style option. I don’t care how cramped it is. I feel like you could stack some bunks that take up the same cubic-space-per-seat as existing seats. I only need enough space to lie sideways with my phone in front of my face and a USB port and I’d travel a lot lot more.

Context: Physically disabled and have issues sitting on chairs for longer than 1-2hrs before my legs are in excruciating pain, but also, before I had this issue I would’ve loved a submarine-bunk option.

> I only need enough space to lie sideways with my phone in front of my face

This sounds like it'd get a lot more uncomfortable than sitting pretty quickly.

Each to their own. I sleep on my side so that’s all the space I’d need to rest and read or watch something on my phone for a while then sleep for the rest of the trip. I’d rather sleep through flights than sit uncomfortably crammed into the pathetically small chairs they give you these days.

Beds in Asia often don’t have a lot of padding, they aren’t designed for side sleepers, you would be on your back quickly. Incidentally, a wooden chinese bed will cure you of side sleeping in a few days if you ever want to go that route. I found my sleep was better, but I reverted back to side sleeping quickly after getting to use a normal western bed again (after about six months of using the Chinese bed).

If you're just sleeping I can see it being fine. I'm just concerned that doing anything other than that will be uncomfortable.

You could, and you'd likely create an evacuation pathway nightmare in the process.

You could eject the sleeping pods out the side of the plane with a small thruster rocket and a parachute.

Ignorant question, but: do we actually have at least one (preferably more) documented cases of where the evacuation happened and was successful?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 ?

Same. Almost 30 years ago, I took an overnight slowboat in Asia with my parents where each passenger had a thin mat (half-inch thick, 2' wide). People sat up, lay down to read or sleep. It was great. I've been on sleeper buses in China and triple-bunk sleeper trains in India and would vastly prefer those to the airline experience.

Challenges with capsule-style beds could be accommodating families and handling meals?

Hard sleepers in China have everyone hanging out on the bottom bunk during the day, their are three levels of bunks, and the top bunk is not for the claustrophobic. Still a bit more comfortable than flying economy, and pretty cheap also (though they are disappearing as HSR trains replace them).

I took an overnight ferry from Shanghai once to putuoshan (maybe in 2004?), I’m guessing it was similar to your experience 3 years ago.

Yeah, we took hard sleepers in China in the early 90s. Loved how chaotic it was. You have to be comfortable with strangers around though. I remember the sleepers in Thailand were really hot with fans everywhere, but had curtains at least - more like submarine bunks. Also have great memories of a 3 day ship from Shanghai to HK, just not the sleeping quarters. We would learn Mahjong from the elderly Chinese and play the 2-3 arcade games.

I've taken a sleeper bus in Asia before but with my 6'5 the short beds are highly uncomfortable. I'm a big fan of sleeper trains though.

My brother and I got on a sleeper bus in China. I'm 6'3, he's 6'9. Everyone saw us look wide-eyed at the small beds and they cracked up laughing. We got swapped to the wider 4-5-wide bed at the very back. Phew!

They do, you just have to be flying the plane to get access to them :)

Check out crew rest areas: https://www.airlinereporter.com/2014/10/inside-look-crew-res...

No way that is an economy cabin. And they chose a very petite model to sit in the chair. Economy is only going to become more miserable over time as people become taller and wider and airlines continue their war of attrition for low fares.

International long haul economy can be a bit roomier than domestic. Can see this workin really well for someone like Air New Zealand whose routes are almost all long hauls.

I always lean forward on the tray table. I find resting my head / getting it horizontal is far more important than anything for the rest of my body.

Is this just me? I get the sense that very little is optimized for this. The next person reclining their seat makes it harder to fit my head on the tray table, for example. Conflicting resting positions!

I'm the same but I'm finding there's simply not enough room to fold over like this on newer airliners.

Not just you. I'm fairly large so I can't lean forward on the tray table, but the only way I can sleep in an airplane is to lean forward on the front seat while resting my head on my arms (like this https://external-preview.redd.it/W6xGQW43ROL6XltdnBo1MbMO4EJ... but imagine my arms on top of the seat in front, my head on top of my arms). I actually prefer it when the seat in front of me is reclined.. makes it super comfortable for me to get some shut eye.

I do the same thing, but eventually it becomes uncomfortable on my folded arms and they fall asleep. Or the person in front of me leans back and crushes my head...

What if there was a cushion on the back of the seat in front of you? Something that you can rest your head on at an angle. I’ve though about this and although I haven’t tried it I feel like that’ll be more comfortable for me.

How about something like this: https://www.asailorslifeforme.org/educator/primary/PS-Plan-o... ?

The sitting position occupies a cubic volume with dead space below the butt and above the lap. If you want to put more people in the plane, make them lie down and place the lie down spaces on top of each other and side by side. I'd be down to fly in an airplane like that which by logic should have cheaper air fares because of more people on the plane.

It's the perfect sleeping position. The problem is Would you rather be lying down all the time or sitting down all the time? Overall I prefer lying down because I have the option of sleeping and staying awake while lying down; while when sitting, I have the option of staying awake and a really hard time getting some shut eye.

How would you get up to go pee? How could you eat pretzels without getting them all over yourself?

I've eaten while lying down. It works.

Also to get out to go to pee, it's the same as sitting down. Basically everyone has to roll or slither out of the lie down spot for the inner person to get out.

FAA regulations require the ability to evacuate the cabin in 90 seconds.

90 seconds as measured by non-realistic volunteers in Toulouse and/or Everett who aren't actually afraid for their lives :(

I'm not sure if you think that people afraid for their lives would be faster or slower.

They would most definitely be slower because of the panic and people pushing and shoving each other compared to an orderly and rehearsed exit

I learned the other day that to simulate panic at some point they started giving money to the passengers who got out first. They said nothing about the amount, but as far as I could understand it actually worked.

Edit: this was in a program about the Manchester plane fire in 1985 where 55 people died. The details are from the part about the investigation after the fire.

The first half to leave the plane are given $50 or so. According to people who have had to deplane in an emergency, this produces identical behaviour.

Maybe do-able. Gotta run an experiment to find out.

That is exactly how slave ships transported their slaves.

I'm African American. Are you implying that I'm advocating slavery? What's your race?

On long distance flights I always use the following hack in economy: I take the armrest separating me from my neighbor and tilt it almost fully up, so it forms about a 15 deg angle with the seat back. Now it's a headrest! Then I take the pillow, fold it and stick it in between the armrest and my head so I can lean comfortably.

Of course this requires kindly asking for permission from the seat neighbor. But most don't really care about the armrest as it doesn't provide enough space for two arms anyway.

On any plane I've been on, the armrest barely reaches my shoulder when in the up position. I have no idea how you can manage this.

“As long as you can make it cheaper and able to fit more total passengers than the boring regular seat then we have a deal.” - Mr. Airline

That's the stand-up seat.[1]

[1] https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/standing-up-airplane-seat...

The real grift is that despite the claims in that article, we all know what will really happen to the prices: standing seats will cost what economy seats used to, and every other tier bumps up.

The cost of flying has gone down significantly over time so I would not be so sure about that.

The price per square inch of human space has probably stayed the same after inflation adjustment. People on average are just more likely to buy cheaper seats than more room, so by natural selection we get smaller seats.

Fares have come down in absolute dollar terms (let alone inflation adjusted) over the last twenty years, while economy seat sizes have barely changed.

What has changed is yield management — airlines have got much better at flying with as few empty seats as possible. So the main thing that has gone down to allow prices to decrease in real terms is your chance of getting an empty seat next to you.

Economy seat sizes haven't changed? Do you have a source for that? I'm including leg room when I say size has decreased. I honestly don't know but would be surprised, common wisdom is that leg room is much less over last 30 years.

I've had my knees touching the front seat for as long as I can remember, it was already this way in the 90's. Maybe it's airline dependent.

They definitely have. I recently got an old plane for a low volume flight, and the difference was night and day.

> "I hope that someone would consider this kind of opportunity -- this is something new. You do not have background for this, you cannot base judgment on previous experiences. We are exploring a new world."

The man says desperately trying to convince anyone that this is a good idea. Also he's talking about 'short-haul' flights then mentions 3 hours which is not exactly a short time to be stand-squat-sitting on a bike seat...

In the UK there are several 2-3 hour train routes that are routinely standing room only. It's not a big deal.

Do people stand for that entire time? That’s some third-world country shit.

Huh? I stood for 2 hours on the Shinkansen in Japan. The non reserved car was quite full.

I'd go for a bunk-bed cabin myself. I wouldn't mind lying on my back all flight with limited headroom if I could read a book and my knees weren't being jammed by the seat in front of me.

Yes! I can’t understand why we can’t have this, like a sleeper bus.

If I were to guess it’s probably because of aircraft evacuation and/or safety standards.

Or maybe it’s just not straightforward to make bunk beds fit with potential need for more aisles, or dealing with the cylindrical shape of the aircraft.

My guess is some combination of tradition / not having enough people able-bodied to climb into the top bunk / evacuation speed. Pure speculation, though.

I think the bottom line is that people aren't, on average, actually willing to pay higher prices for flying with more room. So you could just as easily replace "- Mr Airline" with "- Everyone Involved"

That's an easy conclusion to take, but I would observe it's pretty difficult to shop seat size, and the plane can be swapped for a different one at any time without warning. I understand seat upgrades like economy plus can also be revoked at boarding time.

I upgraded to premium economy for $80 and the two friends I was traveling with gave me shit about it at both ends of the flight. All three of us were highly paid at the time. "That's over 10%!" exclaimed one (flights were ~$700). Uh, ok? I'm gonna physically and mentally torture myself for five ours over $80?

I'm sure there's a fascinating behavioral evolution story behind this and I'd love to know what it is. It feels similar to the way lots of people will spend more time and money driving to a cheaper gas station, than they save on the cheaper gas.

Which route has premium economy for only 10% more?

This was something they offered at the last minute, either at checkin or maybe the gate. It was MTJ->EWR, United.

*Oh yeah and they ended up in row 35 or something like that.

These better-seat design exercises have popped in the news for 20 years, at least. I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Exactly. Everyone's taking this article at face value, but it's an empty design exercise, not linked to any airline, with no cost constraints, that will never see the light of day.

I'd love one of these wingback armchairs to sleep in—but I'd settle for more widespread use of the circa-2000 British Airways economy class seats with their three-part headrest, the outermost parts of which would fold down and forwards to create a very effective side headrest: http://benjaminjtravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Trip-R...

Their newer planes (and those on many airlines) have headrests that fold with a vertical hinge, but these invariably cause my head to tip forward when I fall asleep, waking me up again (if the hinge is even stiff enough not to just fold flat again when I lean against it).

I have a smaller than average head. The 2 vertical side folds are too wide to prevent my head from sagging off to left/right, not to mention forward of course.

Lack of static head position is the biggest hindrance to sleeping seated. Back-Inclination, Leg-Space, Arm-Rest are all secondary. If you're tired enough, a head-harness is enough to catch a solid 4-hr nap.

It also keeps a passenger of size from spilling over into another person's seat. I think this is an improvement. And even if the passenger of size can't use the flaps, the passenger next to him can use them as a barricade.

isn't the real issue the space is limited because jet fuel is too expensive? Both in dollars to get it and cost to planet earth. Seems like the space available for seats per dollar spent will get much better with EPA or NPA (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21436838) and NPA with the stuff happening at places like https://terrapower.com/ seems very promising.

I once worked with someone who was perviously a consultant to a large airline and they dropped the size of their inflight magazine ~20 years ago to save weight and then were amongst the first airlines to drop it all together for the same reason

They figured out the $ they would save p.a with every change of page length, paper weight, etc. (it was partially offset by advertisers and onboard sales but not enough)

I can't recall the exact numbers but they were significant enough to warrant expensive external suits who eat their lunches at their desks doing the calculations and going ahead with it

There are listicles with these kinds of stats every now and then (and I’m usually a sucker for them), like this one: https://www.traveller.com.au/airline-weight-reduction-to-sav...

Scaling any kind of issue changes things dramatically.

thanks, appreciated this article more than the parent.

It would be even better if those "padded wings" would be positioned just in the head range and not in the elbow area. (In elbow area we are much wider and those "wings" would limit us.)

Id honestly be happy with a headband attached the headrest that would stop my head from dropping when I fall asleep.

The cushions on either side only work if the seat is very reclined, else you just keep slipping forward.

I like it but how about some other easy random wins that don't effect required space but due increase user experience.

A vertical tray that comes out under the arm rest to prevent "man spreading" of legs & allows both passengers to rest their leg against without awkward leg touching.

Get rid of the reclining seats. They piss off whoever is behind them. It screws with their video & trays. I don't even need to mention the poor person's knees if they're above average height.

Those seats with wings better be vinyl, otherwise there's going to be a lot of drool that's impossible to clean between flights.

I have given up on airlines doing right by the customers, I simply pay more for premium economy seats now.

This would certainly make things more comfortable for me in general, but I doubt I'd be able to sleep: the real issue for me is that I just can't sleep in a seated position unless I'm exceptionally tired (like, have been awake for more than 24 hours straight tired).

As someone who travels a lot long haul for work and always in economy. I highly recommend the J-Pillow. It solves one of the major problems of sleeping on flights which is that your chin drops forward and wakes you up. Also that you often get neck strain.

Wait, how are they going to get the wings on these economy class seats?

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1419537

Those seats are way wider than economy, whether it’s 3-3, 2-3-2, 3-4-3, or whatever.

Love it. Finally somebody questions the status quo of the economy class. I wonder how this new design competes in terms of price and weight? In the end I doubt that airlines are willing to pay more for economy.

I know it's been bashed to death, but it's funny they'd think the facial recognition thing would be "OK". Just a few months ago there was a big uproar ( https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/airplane-seatback-cameras... ) when someone finally noticed a bunch of the in-seat entertainment systems had a camera lens. This wasn't anything new (and they didn't even work) but the antics even got senators involved.

So why do some IFE have cameras that aren't used? Because the manufacturers are just slapping android tablets (sans case) into the back of the seats.

I would love for some seat innovation in the airline industry, although I don't think sitting off kilter leaning to the side will feel good in the long run. I am pretty sitting posture sensitive.

Interesting but they should try them with oversized passengers as well. I’m guessing that it will increase the level of discomfort for passengers that are wider than the typical narrow seat even more.

If you're too big then you just don't fold them forward and it remains a regular seat. I don't see the loss.

If the person beside a large person deploys the wing, how does that work?

My only worry is airlines will make this an upgrade. Economy "special" or something like that to charge $100 more per seat. We already have quite a few sub classes in economy.

Some pictures would help. Most airline seats I have used for the last few years have had wings - how are these different?

The real reason I take the window seat is so that I can rest my head with a blanket on the plane's interior panels.

I wish airlines would just pump knockout gas into the cabin so I can skip the whole flight experience.

This pretty much seems like a fragile 'patch' that workaround small issue that

concerns: - People that having hard time sleeping in couch would most likely be more sensitive even in 'premium' seats.

- This still not solve the REAL debate of whether bending your seat should be event allowed since it reduces the other passengers space unless he's also going with the domino...

If it weren't for the screens on the back of the seats these photos could be 40 years old.

as a very broad shouldered individual, I suspect I will viscerally hate those "wings" on the seat if I ever encounter them. That small woman looks quite comfortable in the photos, but what about a 2m tall man?

I think the seat is meant to be a Premium Economy seat, not regular coach.

Hahahah, no way, I never thought I would live to this day :D

Sometimes small changes can make a big difference!

the models show a 2x2 seat configuration. Most cattle-class seating is 3x3. Will this work with 3 seats across?

6'4" and miserable knees.

I'd sit on someone's lap every flight to replace roomier seats with a massive parachute and airbags

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