Economy Seat Design

[TightSlot]

Thought some of you might be interested to see some thoughts on improvements to seat design in economy class, courtesy of this Flightglobal Blog (http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/runway-girl/2008/12/cozy-suites-on-delta-787splus.html)

[Big Tudor]

About time to. Is it really beyond human endeavour to build a COMFORTABLE airline seat. However, I notice that they have used the magnificent PR ploy of using children and size 10 woman to show what the seat looks like. Why not use 3 blokes in the 180-210lb range? That is the sort of passengers most of us are gonna be sharing our 3 square feet of space with! :hmm: And while we are at it, why not get the 3 blokes to give us a demonstration of how we are supposed to eat a meal with our neighbours elbow covering half the tray table!! :rolleyes:

[Seat62K]

I had to have a word with a fellow passenger the other day about his lack of consideration; you know, the middle seat selfish individual who insists on using both arm rests and then some, leaving me (and presumably the window seat passenger) with his elbows sticking into my side. He didn't like it but tucked his elbows in anyway.
My worst experience was on US Airways between Gatwick and either Philadelphia or Charlotte, sitting next to a human whale, who put up the arm-rest when I went to the loo and faked being unwakeable when I returned to find him occupying not just his own seat but much of mine, too.
I hate inconsiderate passengers! Rant over!

[Dushan]

I was recently on Air France 747 which had some kind of new, "ergonomic" seats. They were terrible. Had a bit of a bend at the top that was supposed to allow one to lean sideways. That was OK, but the backrest was hard and shaped in an arch, opposite to how one's back goes. The whole seat was hard, didn't seem to have a lot of foam or padding, just hard plastic. Very uncomfortable. The return trip was on a A340, it had the old style seats. Not great, but at least the seat cushion was soft.

[groundbum]

I was on a flight once and found at the top of the seat that the two sides of the headrest hinged out and held your head in place. I got the BEST sleep ever, as normally you slide one way or the other all night long.

But never never ever since have I seen these on any other plane. Why not? So simple, so brilliant! And if not your thing, just fold them back in again.

G

[PAXboy]

The seat 'wings' are on a fair number of carriers now, although they started more in Premium Economy, they are now in some Eco seats.

Overall, this idea of a 'new' seat that will be 'better' and 'roomier' than before? I don't believe a word of it!!! Money will dominate and the only place these seats will emerge is in new a/c and not for a couple of years. They will be more expensive than the existing desgns and no carrier has extra money to spend on a/c they now rather wish they had not ordered. Existing carriers are going to postpone cabin refurbishments due to the financial crash and just do the basics in the cabin at D checks.

It's like the adverts from Airbus about big spaces on the 380. Nope. They will be filled with seats by the carrier. Remember the ads for the 747-100 and the upstairs lounge? Remember how First pax would have two seats? Nope. The lounge became Club and so it will continue. Not least, because pax want to pay less money and that means more (and smaller) seats.

That is not to say that these new seats will not emerge in a few years and may well become the new standard but, I suggest, not any time soon!

[Dushan]

PAXBoy,
I hope you are right. Seven night hours in one of these things; Marquis de Sade would have been proud of his AF countrymen...

[Final 3 Greens]

Just for your thought

BA: LON/NYC/LON = approx 6,600 miles for £339 = 5.1 pence per mile, free meals and drinks

The Trainline: London/Edinburgh/London = approximately 800 miles for £109 = 13.6 pence per mile, paid for drinks and meals

Both 'long haul' services, so a like for like comparison, both travelling within 15 minutes for both journeys and both discounted fares.

And people complain about the seats in economy?

[draughtsman99]

F3G - that is a gross misuse of numbers! I could get a cheaper fare for the London/ Edinburgh/London train than the one you quote by simply avoiding train line and booking ahead, as you would need to do to get your £339 fare to NYC and back.
I am sure the seat would be more comfortable and have a greater pitch than any airline plus I would be spared some numpty reclining on top of me during meal service.
Please compare like with like if you want people to take your arguments seriously.
Shorter journies will always show a price disadvantage over longer ones because of the standing infrastrucure costs at each end which have to be bourne, no matter what the length of the trip.
The seats in economy are sh1t, ask any pax.
They are only tolerated because people have no choice when it comes to long distance travel.

[Final 3 Greens]

Draughtsman

I quoted prices for travel on the same day.

Having looked closer, you are correct, one can get a cheapest ticket of £59.37, which still equates to 7.4 pence per mile, 45% more expensive per mile.

If one takes Ryanair (STN-PIK) on the same dates and times, the cost is £20.00, compared to National Express at £105.00!

I believe that these journeys are approximately the same length.

Would you still like to argue that Shorter journies will always show a price disadvantage over longer ones because of the standing infrastrucure costs at each end which have to be bourne, no matter what the length of the trip.

So time to stop whinging about the seats and acknowledge the great value or pay for a more comfortable seat.

I tried to get the pitch/width of the train seats, but could not find these on the internet.

I would be surprised if they were larger than airline Y class seats.

[draughtsman99]

Having looked closer, you are correct, one can get a cheapest ticket of £59.37, which still equates to 7.4 pence per mile, 45% more expensive per mile.

If one takes Ryanair (STN-PIK) on the same dates and times, the cost is £20.00, compared to National Express at £105.00!So F3G, having lost your argument using transatlantic fares v's intercity you now move the goalposts.
When you factor in PIK to Glasgow train fare you will get nearer to a true comparison on costs.
I don't remember anyone 'whinging' about the seats, just a few pax pointing out that the designers don't get it right all the time.
Methinks you protest too strongly, can I ask why you feel so compelled to support present seat design? Not everyone rides a gravy train where they can afford more expensive seats and the thread is about ECONOMY seat design or did you miss that bit in your desire to back airline policy?

[Final 3 Greens]

So F3G, having lost your argument using transatlantic fares v's intercity you now move the goalposts.

What part of my last post showing intercity being 45% more expensive than BA transatlantic did you have trouble understanding?

Lost the argument? I don't think so.

As to moving the goalposts, that was only because you protested that I was not comparing like for like, so I did.

When you factor in PIK to Glasgow train fare you will get nearer to a true comparison on costs.

No, the journey I compared was London to Prestwick, so the comparison is spot on.

You could argue that I haven't included the cost of travel from London to Stansted, so let's cost a one way train ticket - oh, that's £17, nearly as much as the flight! Still only £37 versus £105, even allowing for the train costing about 35p per mile and the flight about 5p.

Oh and you may have to stand on the train, they don't even guarantee you a seat :}

I don't remember anyone 'whinging' about the seats

Did you read this post?

I was recently on Air France 747 which had some kind of new, "ergonomic" seats. They were terrible.

Not everyone rides a gravy train where they can afford more expensive seats

But the point is that fares have fallen and enabled people who could not have travelled in the past, to travel today.

For example, Laker Skytrain (LGW-NYC) tickets were (IIRC) £59 each way in 1979, so a return fare was £118.

Allow for inflation at an average 6% per annum and the adjusted cost of that flight would be approximately £650 today and that for a low cost service. BA will sell you a premium economy ticket for £808, so in real terms only £158 more than a no frills flight 29 years ago - I'd call that good value.

So it's not about gravy trains, it's about the airlines making journeys possible, that would have not been possible 29 years ago.

As for the trains........

[draughtsman99]

I was recently on Air France 747 which had some kind of new, "ergonomic" seats. They were terribleThats an observation by a paying customer, not whinge!

Your observations on price reduction, in real terms, over the years is a valid one but is equalled in many industries (automative, TV, Hi Fi) where quality has improved over the years and has not deteriorated like seat ptch and width of airline seats. I flew from GLA to LHR on a Viscount just as the Tridents were being introduced. I did not appreciate at that time that I would never again get the degree of comfort afforded by Vickers design.
Airlines are on a 'cram them in' and never mind the air quality or DVT dangers trip.

Now compare train travel - no numpty security to deal with and surprise, surprise your bags will arrive with you, something BA hasen't managed on my last 4 flights.
You can book a seat which will not have some neanderthal reclining his seat on you, you can keep your table down, make phone calls, read, get up and walk about even before the train moves off, you can even use one of a dozen toilets that wont be full as you near the end of your trip, now that is worth paying extra for.
As someone once said to me 'they can always make things a bit cheaper and nastier' and that is the history of mass aviation. Please do not lecture us SLF on what a good deal we get.

[Michael SWS]

You could argue that I haven't included the cost of travel from London to Stansted, so let's cost a one way train ticket - oh, that's £17, nearly as much as the flight! Still only £37 versus £105, even allowing for the train costing about 35p per mile and the flight about 5p.

Oh and you may have to stand on the train, they don't even guarantee you a seat.Your figures are nonsense.

The cheapest advance train ticket from London to Glasgow is £12 each way - and if you book a couple of months in advance and travel off-peak they are not difficult to come by. That's a return fare of £24 from the centre of London to the centre of Glasgow, not a ticket from the middle of Essex to the Ayrshire coast. And it can take as little as 4 hours 15 minutes.

And yes, if you book in advance the train companies do guarantee you a seat.

Just accept it - the train is often cheaper, faster and more comfortable than flying.

[Final 3 Greens]

The cheapest advance train ticket from London to Glasgow is £12 each way

Not on the day I looked at and that was the same day as for the flights, so you are incorrect.

And yes, if you book in advance the train companies do guarantee you a seat.

Not on the Stansted Express, they don't, which is what I meant, although I see my comment was ambiguous.

Just accept it - the train is often cheaper, faster and more comfortable than flying.

The please find me a rail fare from Stansted to Prestwick that beats £20 and takes less than 4 hours and then I might be convinced. (I have found 7 hours 15 minutes and £129 so far.)

Not everyone lives in central London and wants to go to central Glasgow.

Anyway, we are getting away from the point, which is that airfares have decreased in real terms over the past 20 years and made travel more accessible.

Less comfort and a mass processing experience are the prices paid, whether that is a good deal depends on one's perspective.

You certainnly won't get get me down the back of a jet on a long journey.

[Capot]

It's many years - decades to be honest - since I sat in an RAF rear-facing seat in a Britannia or VC10. They had "side-wings" for head comfort, and I remember them as being the most comfortable aircraft seat I have ever used.

In the Britannia the combination of that low background drone/hum from the engines, the seat, and the rock-steady ride hour after hour, is a treasured memory. I suppose the fact that one was on the way to an uncertain future (usually in the Middle East..then as now) or going home in one piece contributed to the rosy memories.

[PAXboy]

Another point on the 'which is cheapest' - Can you find the cheapest seat?

Many pax (irrespective of mode of transport) do not know where/how to find the cheapest seat. These are often only available for short periods of time, under the guise of a Sale to be bought before a certain time of day etc. Not to mention that the main vendor (the carrier or primary agent) may not be the ones selling these seats. If you cannot readily find that cheap ticket - it does not exist.

Now to sit back into my very comfortable German, ergonomically designed office chair ...

[draughtsman99]

Not everyone lives in central London and wants to go to central Glasgow.
:O:O:O:O:O:O

Not many people want to got to or from Prestwick.:O:O:O:O:O:O

Off topic - Glasgow airport should never have been built - it was a council ego trip!
Prestwick should have been developed with decent road and rail links.
Then few people would have had to suffer aircraft over their houses and Scotland could have had a 24 hour airport capable of taking the biggest beasts.

[Final 3 Greens]

Draughtsman

You make a good point about Prestwick and the lost opportunity to develop it.

[Mark in CA]

The most comfortable economy seat I found was on Lufthansa 747s after they redesigned the interiors in the late 1990s. (I believe that design overhaul was done by Frog Design here in the SF Bay Area.) The new seats had a bit more support (depth) under the thighs and fairly firm seat cushions, as well as the adjustable, winged headrests (which many pax to this day seem to be unaware of).

[nicolai]

as the adjustable, winged headrests (which many pax to this day seem to be unaware of).
They're often very ill-advertised. When Continental introduced them in their then-new 777s back in 199something I was flying them every few months and the first time I got into a 777 as compared to the previous journeys on a DC-10, I didn't realise the seats had changed.
On one of the subsequent trips I found a crumpled leaflet in the bottom of the seatback in front which described how to use the headrest and which seemed to have been placed in the aircraft when new, but nearly all of them had got lost in the mean time and noone in Continental had considered how the second and subsequent passenger in that seat was going to work out how to operate it. I hadn't noticed anyone else adjusting their headrest before then and afterwards I watched the proportion of people using the adjustment go up slowly and steadily.
Having been introduced to the idea I now fiddle with every seat to discover how the headrest adjusts, and I expect everyone else does also, but there was an initial idea propagation step to get over.

[Flapping_Madly]

I was hoping they were the first use of the Richard and Dick seats shown on that TV prog of many years back. Anyone recall it?