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Comment by wildzzz | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to visit Australia and SE Asia but am hesitant with those long flights. I'd probably be fine with layflat seats but those are well beyond what I'd ever consider paying for an airline ticket.

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Many of colleagues do this all the time, usually via the Middle East. I did it before; it sucks but with enough gin tonic and melatonin it goes by in with too much pain.

Would make sense to offer packages with lay-flat seats in shifts (possibly formally/informally for people on the same ticket).

Especially on the same routes where you’d think about using this kind of airliner...

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

You just know this is going to be 2-3 times the price of an economy seat, which means you're going to buy the economy seat anyway. In flights, price beats everything else.

I think this is an ancillary specifically for economy class passengers—you pay a certain amount to reserve a 4-hour slot on a bunk or something. I have no idea, but my guess is economy + nap slot would still come in well under the cost of a business seat. Plus they can sell those same 6 berths what, 4 or 5 times over in the same 22-hour flight?

If I recall correctly they’re not certified for use during taxi takeoff and landing, I’d imagine due to orderly-evacuation kinds of requirements.

You could pack a lot more in if you sedate them and put them in racks like they have at the morgue. TBH I'd sign up for that on a long flight if the sedative recovery wasn't bad.

Next stop Phlosten Paradise.

This is exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote it down ;)

Just like The Jaunt by Stephen King. "It's longer than you think, dad! ...about 22 hours."

Ah yes, the B.A. Baracus method! I'd use that!

I've traveled UK to Australia a few times. Not nonstop, but with stops in SE Asia, basically 2x13 hours plus a few hours airport time.

It sucks, but you get over it because how else are you going to get there? If you don't suffer blood clots or something, it isn't really actively dangerous.

> how else are you going to get there?

Sailing would be more fun, IMO. Might take a quarter or half a year though.

>2x13 hours plus a few hours airport time.

That sounds like pure torture

Isn't everything, really? A dentist's appointment for example. It has an end, and then you're glad you had the courage to go through it.

The longest I've spent in a dentist's chair is perhaps an hour, when I had braces as a teen.

Being cooped up in a metal tube for 13 hours, knowing you had to do the same thing tomorrow, and then the same thing two more fucking times on your way home, is not worth any vacation to me.

Then don't do it for vacation. A resort in Australia is no more valuable to you than one in Florida (if you're in the US). Do it for something more meaningful.

You can play the points game and win - Singapore biz from US west coast booked a year in advance is within the signup bonus amount :)

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