It all reminds me of the quote of one of the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company before a Parliamentary Committee on transport in the 1880s. He admitted that..." the Company was thinking of the possibility of transporting the lower orders of passengers for a lower fare, in carriages of an inferior description, at a very slow speed, perhaps at night."
Fact is that only air-travel has the enormous GULF in comfort levels between passengers. Third class in trains was abolished decades ago. There is no longer "steerage" on ocean liners. There is much less of a difference between 2nd and 1st class on trains or between cruise ship cabins. There is an awful lot of 19th century class division and snobbery in this 20th century industry.
I could go on a two week cruise for the asking price of a business-class long-haul seat.
The EU was pressed to legislate for larger seats (wider and with larger pitch), they passed the buck and finally refused to do anything because of airline lobbying and with the amazing excuse that seating with a bigger pitch is less safe in case of a crash! (In which case, why not abolish 1st and Business Class on H&S grounds?) Guy in charge of Commission Transport portfolio at the time was one Neil Kinnock, man of the people, champion of the working class.
Seats certainly need redesigning. Who was the twerp who put the controls for TV, sound, reading light etc in the inside of the armrest so that you have to either get out of your seat to see it, or try all the buttons blindly thus calling the stewardess instead of turning the volume up?
Current tourist class seat sizes are based on the average height, weight and girth of adults in 1948. Humans are on average much larger now. Beware when flying KLM- the Dutch are the tallest people in the world. Netherlands house door standard height has been increased to take account of this. Airline seats, including KLM, have not.
It's not a simple question of "you get what you pay for". Pax power will eventually prevail. For example, I would fly in an Airbus 380 if the extra space is used by sensible airlines to improve tourist class seating (width and pitch), toilet facilities and overall comfort. If an airline uses a 380 just to put 1000 people in like sardines, I won't touch it with a barge pole. I refer to long-haul flights. As Ryanair proves, for short haul (up to 3 hours), seat pitch and comfort is by no means as important.
