Lufthansa trialing lie-flat Economy seat concept | Hacker News Reader

Lufthansa trialing lie-flat Economy seat concept

edition.cnn.com

55 pointsTomte52 comments

I was expecting some kind of fancy seats, like business class but more packed. It's simply about sleeping sideway on 3 or 4 normal seats because these flights are far from being full.

Sounds great if you're short. There's nothing pleasant about that for anyone over 6 feet (1.8 m), I've tried. I'd rather sleep sitting up.

I’m 185cm. By far my two best hacks for flying comfortably on long-haul are, in order:

1. Have my employer pay for business class; and,

2. Lose 45kg.

Being fat is awful for flights.

I kept the weight and wrote a scraper that looks for cheap business class across continents(I can do last miles in economy)

https://github.com/sjurgis/puppeteer-flights

Agreed. I’m 5’6”/167cm and the full length of seats will fit me. I’ve been able to fly “poor man’s business class” a few times and found it comfortable on Delta and Southwest without any extra padding.

So this means that if the plane is empty they'll now forbid passengers from using 3 seats and ask them to pay instead?

More likely, now it is not going to be a pure luck to find yourself in the position where you are sitting along in 3 seats, but you will need to pay for this privilege + as a bonus you get pillow and blanket.

I've been on two 13+ hour flights this year and both times the plane was nearly empty. 20-30 people for an entire dreamliner. We each had about 4-6 rows in between us, and of course everyone was laying down to sleep. I sure hope they don't try to push you to sit up in this case.

> So this means that if the plane is empty they'll now forbid passengers from using 3 seats and ask them to pay instead?

I was wondering what exactly they were offering, and to my surprise this what I would do after the seating process and the snacks were handed out. Typically the lights would be low and people moving about made it easier to ID.

I was asked not to do that since in about 15+ international long haul flights, with various airliners but other than that I thought it just made more sense if there were 2-3 of us on a single row while there unused rows in the back.

Yes, because capitalism always finds ways to monetize, even on things that were thought to be free.

I'm still waiting for an airline to roll out proper lie-flat seating in Economy, like couchette/sleeper trains: just stack three bunk beds on top of each other. Unfortunately safety regulations make it difficult if not impossible to implement this, and prohibitively expensive for an airline to even try.

Air New Zealand is trialing this. I guess for a country with such distances to anywhere, not surprising they are pioneers in flight comfort.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/26/lie-flat-beds-...

But it seems like this is in addition to a seat, not instead:

> “The concept is designed as a pod you go to during the flight,” she said. “You will still have your economy seat separately for the other portion of the flight.”

Which of course avoids all the regulatory problems of evacuation during landing, etc. But also must make it expensive -- if you are buying twice the floor area, then you could have a business class seat.

On long distance flights weight becomes bigger problem than volume. Singapore airlines 20 hr flight has no economy at all and I presume volumes of space in cargo area.

That said seats that can fold into three level bunks could be possible, but airline has no incentive to make cheaper business class. It’s their best interest to make economy as bad as legally possible to force you into upgrade.

I had an economy row on intercontinental flights for myself a couple of times (back in 2009 during the financial crisis, when flights were routinely half empty). It definitely helps, but you can't fully stretch out if you are taller than 5ft and it doesn't compete with business class.

Interesting. Have there been many attempts that failed?

I'm not aware of any that made it past the concept stage. My understanding is that takeoff and landing is the tricky part, since passengers need to be in an upright position -- but do they really?

Air New Zealand has been doing this for a long time, the call it a sky couch.

https://www.airnewzealand.com/economy-skycouch

The article mentions this.

For $260, you can experience what it would be like to sleep on a park bench while 36,000 feet in the air.

When you're halfway thru a packed 12 hour flight in economy, a park bench will seem like a 5 star hotel! You'd curl up on the cabin floor if they let you, or beg the flight attendand to zap you with a taser to knock you out.

Sleeping on the floor sounds better. That’s what my mate apparently does if it’s only 2 passengers.

You need to be on fairly bad airline tho where stewardess don’t care.

Heck, forget three seats. I would even pay extra just to have the middle seat empty (with me in aisle or window). It really makes a difference on long hauls.

EDIT: turns out it's already possible to do that.

https://thepointsguy.com/guide/buy-second-airplane-seat/

Most airlines already try to do that in Premium Economy. Typically it's the first 8 rows in Economy where there is more leg room and distance between you and the person in front. The gate agents will try very hard to separate (block middle seats) for all the passengers in this zone unless it is an extremely full flight and not possible.

Just upgrade (use points) to Premium Economy (do it at the gate once you know how full the flight is) for a fraction of what a middle seat would cost to keep empty. Good chance you might luck out.

Ah that's a good tip -- I didn't know they did that.

It does depend on luck though. I did luck out one time on Lufthansa (Premium Economy) where there was an empty seat next to me, however, this wasn't the case on all segments.

Buying a middle seat on the other hand removes luck from the equation.

Once I got bumped onto a different return flight from NY to London, and it was on a 747. Got onto the plane pretty late because of this, and it was fairly quiet - this was about 10pm boarding time. Had a seat on the outside of the middle 4, and there was no-one else in those 4 seats, but a guy on the next aisle seat to me on his own group of 3. We both looked a bit sheepishly at each other and smiled when they shut the doors - had a complete row of seats each on that flight, the most comfortable return flight I've had from the US - stretched out across the seats and had a decent sleep for once!

Not sure I'd want to pay for it though - there's hard metal between the seat bases...

For $250 it’s a bargain on a long flight. I once did an 11 hour flight without an upgrade but was fortunate the flight was nearly empty. Everyone got their own row and it made the flight far more pleasant.

Fortunately was upgraded on the way home.

Agree - once got an unexpectedly good night’s sleep coming back from Thailand in the same way.

If I'm seeing this right Air NZs skycouch is a much better design and not sure why others wouldn't apply that. Skycouch seem to have an extender that fils the empty space where you normally put your legs wheres this seems like a regular seat.

Does anyone have problem with airline headrest. I have trouble sitting up for one but if I can it works best if I can let my head kinda fall back (however had that might be for my neck) at least a little. Now all the airline seat bulges forward and I can almost never sleep.

They feel like they're designed to optimize discomfort.

There are really only two ways I can sit in them. One is that just one small point of my head makes contact, and my back is perfectly straight and doesn't make contact with the seat. The other is that I do rest my head against it, but I'm bending my head down at a 45 degree angle and it feels like my neck is about to snap.

I wish they just didn't exist.

Thank God to hear that I'm not the only one. Most people seem to have no problem with it.

I wonder if anybody actually likes it more than a flat or depressed headrest.

Same. If the head rests in particular were concave and could lean back a tiny bit to where my head would not roll onto my neighbor / the aisle / smack the side of the plane I’d be able to sleep on every flight.

I believe the sides of most headrests can be pulled forward.

I've found this to be true on trans-oceanic flights, but rarely on trans-continental (USA). I wish it were true on all flights - even if it's not a night flight, it's nice to nod off for a quick 20 min nap sometimes.

Yes, but the mechanism is not strong enough to stay put on US economy planes

I once had an Emirates flight from Dubai to Hamburg where, by pure coincidence, no one else was in the seat group with me--exactly the convenience Lufthansa is offering here. If I may be a bit tacky on HN--oh brother didn't I travel like a king that day! :P It was also the last half of a longer route so it was really a pleasantly surprising luxury to be able to stretch my legs like that.

Granted, that was an Emirates flight, already known for its luxury. If my experience with Eurowings is anything to go by, I don't know if $260 USD would be worth two seats, a blanket, and a pillow. Buying a second seat might be a wiser way to get a bit more comfortable.

It looks like it’s not exactly the same. With Lufthansa, it looks like you get some sort of cushion that presumably smooths out the seat bumps, which would make a big comfort difference, at least for me.

However, I won’t be trying it out. Lufthansa has been willfully lying to people about COVID-related refunds, stonewalling, and making it impossible even to request a refund. Thank heavens for American Express, who took care of it for me.

(Sorry for the off-topic rant, but I would seriously urge folks to think twice about Lufthansa.)

It would be awesome if bunk beds could be used to improve space efficiency.

I can see there being significant hurdles from a regulatory point of view - safety during takeoff and landing, emergency situation procedures & timings, etc.

Last we had a 2 year old. We bought two adult seats and a child seat. The bet was that no one would want to be close to a wailing baby and we’d get the 4th seat. The bet panned out and we got all 4 seats.

Baby had fun being comfy and being able to sleep flat.

Business is way too expensive. Regular seat is $1.5k from Seattle to Dubai, Business/First is like $10k. Insane. I’d happily pay $3k for comfort of two seats and be able to sleep.

Our journey from SEA -> NBO is 30hrs minimium with at-least one leg.

I would really like this on trans-continental flights. I don't want the frills of Business but I just want a seat that reclines more than 100 degrees - perhaps 180.

Business has gotten closer to just that and nothing else. 3 years ago I ate amazing food on TAP business class, now a month ago I just left it there and ate almonds that I brought with me in case.

> 3 years ago

Actually I have had the same experience 1 year ago. The current situation is just due to the pandemic.

> I don't want the frills of Business but I just want a seat that reclines more than 100 degrees - perhaps 180.

But that's really all business is these days - a lie flat seat.

But really, you pay for wider seats, pre-boarding, lounge, better meals, extra baggage, etc. Not worth the cost of a business class IMO.

> This concept isn't new -- Air New Zealand has offered its Economy Skycoach, which is a similar premise, since 2011.

Yeah, this works pretty well. It’s cosy, like a small single bed but big enough for two people if you know each other well. Good to have on Air NZ’s 10hr+ flights.

But this will take all the fun out of guessing where to choose your seat so you'll likely have the row to yourself, or to anxiously wait for them to say "boarding completed" and then make a mad dash to that empty row behind one's current seat!

With booking at boarding/check-in, I assume this will only be offered during COVID times? Once things return to normal won't flights be too full to ever use this?

Pillow and blanket rental for 260? Wow.

To recline or not to recline?

Yond, my friend, isn't the question

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