Is it time for new mandatory rules for seat pitch and width on all passenger planes?

[surely not]

I wasn't answering what the airline includes in the ticket cost, I was pointing out that those passengers who claimed that their personal space they had paid for was being violated by someone reclining their seat in front of them were incorrect and it wasn't part of the ticket cost.

[PAXboy]

SLF have come to expect that their space remains the same and may forget that, when they recline their seat, they chaneg the space config of the person behind.

When reclining it is an idea to move the seat back one third or one half of it's travel and then wait. This give the person behind time to adjust items on their tray etc. After some minutes, then recline the whole way. What tends to spark the upset is a seat going from upright to back in one go at an inopportune moment.

So the answer is synchronised reclining. The 787 has electric adjusted windows, now put it on the seats. When a whistle sound is played on the PA, all seats will recline by exactly the same amount. When 'rest time' is over, the seats will return to the upright position.

Simples.

[PIK3141]

Even simpler, certainly for shorthaul, is the Ryanair solution of no reclining seats. Solves the problem nicely.

[ExXB]

Any many of EasyJet's aircraft are so configured. (More U2 than DZ though). I much prefer not having that option.

[chefrp]

Safety Squeeze

ExXB,

I've seen nothing to suggest that it isn't safe.

It was a rhetorical question. I would say the incidents with angry passengers fighting over reclining seats is an unsafe situation on a commercial aircraft in mid flight....no?

[chefrp]

Conspiracy

THE PEOPLE VOTED and selected cheap. Not service, not safety, not anything but cheap.

That may be true, and many people admit to it as well, they are the same people who get stuck in the middle seat of a 10 seat across 777ER for 12 hours cause they are stupid too!

I think at this point though, the bean counters have figured out how to charge more for less. Yes, the seats are cheap...but they are no longer worth the price. They are not "that cheap"!

People have just become use to **** service....

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by ExXB

American Airlines used to offer more legroom in economy several years ago. They found that given the choice, people will buy a ticket at a lower price on a competing airline rather than pay a little bit more for more legroom.

Ah, I remember this. And the myth about its disappearance.

The scheme was American Airlines MRTC - More Room Through Coach. Yes, they removed a couple of seat rows and repitched the remainder to give everyone a couple more inches. There was an extensive supporting campaign. In all truth it didn't seem to have an impact on AA fares.

Then it was withdrawn, along with all sorts of justifications about how nobody took the extra room into account.


That was a complete fabrication. I can tell you it was the No 1 topic of conversation between seatmates for the several years that it was in force. US travellers in particular really picked up on the concept and said how they liked the better feeling.

However, at HQ this was all ignored by beancounters, who have the bizarre idea that if you are getting say 80% load factors (sounds reasonable) then in a 300 seat aircraft you will sell 240 seats, but if it now has 320 seats you will sell 256 instead. In my experience no AA flight during this time approached 100% full, nor did one when they stuck the extra seats back in (actually they put more back in than they initially took out). The fares didn't noticeably change relative to the competition either.

But then this was all come up with by US airline Yield Management analysts, who cheerfully manage to actually sell about 10% of the First Class seats at the published fare, and then let the rest go to free upgrades of Y passengers who happen to have done a lot of flying - who are of course exactly your target market for paid F seats in the first place, but travellers now realise they don't need to do so. In fact on less well loaded US flights, F now has a downside, there can be plenty of space back in the Y cabin with only two or even one passengers per seat bank, which lets you spread out, while up front in F every seat is taken and those odd F passengers who actually paid the big fare find they are surrounded by those who just Yadda Yadda Yadda relentlessly about how they "scored" another upgrade on a Y fare.

[Heathrow Harry]

ahh remember the 60's & 70's? When every airline flew accordingt o IATA rules - same food, same movies, same seat pitch, same fares??????

no competition

when people like Laker, SQ and a few others tore up the book everyone thought it was great

[chefrp]

Scoot Airlines

Check out this new Airline out of Singapore. They are purely long haul, fly wide bodies. This business model could work in the USA. But they may need to fly 777 or A330 across the country...that would be nice!

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