> Faced with a choice between discomfort and higher fares, most travelers choose discomfort
Airlines are still in business so the execs think that things are running smoothly. At my peak, I was spending roughly $70k/year on my own flights and probably another $100k for my partner and employees. Now I spend $0. Not a big hit to the airline, but I'm not the only one. Long before airline scandals I ran into the fact that the airlines that I was loyal to made decision after decision that clearly told me they didn't care about my business. So I left. It wasn't an easy decision. But they pushed hard enough that it became a health decision for me and not a business decision. The little stress points that they added to my life compounded enough to the point where they became big. So I stopped.
All around the country companies are finding ways to avoid flying altogether. Web conferencing and video conferencing solutions are better than they were 15 years ago, but not significantly. The acceptance of remote work isn't just a budget decision, it's a productivity one. The decision to fly now involves up to 4 hours a week on top of flight times and time to and from the airport. Internet access is terrible at most airports and on most flights.
Air travel was once something to look forward to. Now, for the most part, it's simply not. TSA has played a big part, making the experience miserable in a way that only a government agency can. But most of the trouble with flying is really due to airline executive decisions.
Also, there's the basic fact that most travelers have zero idea how much legroom they'll have (or not have in this case) until they're actually in their seat. It's bait and switch, and varies not just from airline to airline, but from plane to plane. If consumers actually knew they'd have no legroom, and then chose that option, that would be one thing, but they don't know.
I'm 6'3", with long upper legs, so this is a serious issue for me. It's torturous to fly... literally. Either I don't fly, or pay extortionate sums to upgrade.
Airlines should be forced to put the legroom space on the ticket and required to honor it. I bet things would be much different if consumers knew how badly they were getting fucked over in clear detail.
I'm 6'4 and I flew once to see family back home. It was a nightmare. I don't think I ever was able to settle well enough into my seat since my knees were always getting bumped (no fault of the fellow passengers when they pack us in like sardines). I'll never fly again. They'd have to sedate me to get me to fly. It's just too cramped. I've been on greyhound buses that are roomier.
Completely agree with this. I'm 6'5" (196cm) and on most flights my femur is approximately the pitch of the seat. I have no choice but to "manspread" on many flights.
First Class seems to have roomier seats but on some planes I don't think there is much improvement to leg room, well at least domestic short flights.
which brings up another point, unless you are taking those one off sale seats always check the prices of first class. a small fee could land you at the front of the plane with preferential boarding.
I'm the same height. I still don't understand how OSHA has authority over my desk and lighting in my office, but nobody has authority over airline seat size.
Frankly in a crash landing (even a hard landing), anyone as tall as we are is going to have at least a broken nose.
Also, many travelers don't get to choose at all. I work at a public university in Spain, and we have a regulation that we can only fly economy class. I think all the Spanish public sector does that, and probably many other European countries.
I'm 1.97 tall and standard economy class seats are a torture to me. When I travel for personal reasons, I avoid planes whenever possible and otherwise, at any flight longer than one hour I buy at least an upgrade to a so-called "premium economy" seat or an emergency exit seat (which used to be free, but now they charge extra for them too). I could also do that for work flights out of my own pocket, but I find the concept of paying for work flights quite outrageous, apart from the fact that in some flights I would need to pay half my monthly salary for the upgrade.
I'm hoping for regulation to impose a minimum seat pitch, it's the only thing that can save me from torturous flights in the short term (the other would be a local regulation that people over a certain dimensions can be paid a better ticket in public sector travel, but I think hell will freeze over before that, because austerity, etc.).
> Also, many travelers don't get to choose at all.
> When I travel for personal reasons, I avoid planes whenever possible and otherwise, at any flight longer than one hour I buy at least an upgrade to a so-called "premium economy" seat or an emergency exit seat (which used to be free, but now they charge extra for them too).
This looks to me like you're actually making a choice.
Ryanair/easyjet are still growing stupendously fast in the EU, and Norwegian is bringing that model to transatlantic flights. People love it. Ryanair grew at 12% yoy last month and hit a 94% load factor. They've went from 0 to 120m+ pax in about 20 years.
The thing is basically people are incredibly price conscious on booking flights. It's commoditized with the way people search for flights. Arguably this is because the industries IT systems are so old school that data such as seat pitch can't be easily syndicated so 3rd parties can show it, but I'm not sure if people would care enough.
Actually, being tall I really like Ryanair for the simple fact that their seats don't recline. Don't have to worry about somebody in front of me smashing my knees.
I genuinely think Ryanair are awesome for business. We run a small human rights NGO startup and there is no way we could do nearly as much without Ryanair.
Compared to most rubbish US carriers like United...They are cheap (you don't care if you miss a flight too much for a meeting), they take off and (more importantly) land pretty much on time. The airplanes seats are decent, the website and app have gotten much better and they have calmed down some of the more annoying crap like jingles and stuff.
I'd rather say that Ryanair wins because it flies to places where no one else does. I don't fly with them because they are cheap - I fly with them because when I need to go home it's either a 3h ryanair flight or a 3h flight with someone else + 5-6h train journey. There's zero competition unless you only fly between capital cities.
I will always prefer trains or bus. Even if they add up to 5 hours to the trip. Air travel stresses me too much. It's constant waiting, discomfort, commutting to and out of the airport, losing your rights at the security gates, etc...
Same problems, same conclusion here - I hate being 'herded' exactly like cattle. Therefore I completely quit flying quite a while back now. I think I flew TWICE over the last 10 years, I don't even go on holidays oversea anymore because the security circus just sours the whole experience.
> Air travel was once something to look forward to.
I love flying! Best way to sit down and chill for a fee hours with a good book. The internet is too crappy to be useful, the seats too cramped to do real work, so I chill and I read. It's honestly very relaxing and I enjoy it.
Yes I could do it without flying, but I find it hard to relax when I both have work to do and the ability to do it.
Plus I'm short enough that I can fully extend my legs under the seat in front of me even in coach. That helps a lot.
> > Faced with a choice between discomfort and higher fares, most travelers choose discomfort"
If that's the article's premise, then it's correct. Even though there are many more economy seats on each plane than their are business or first, the economy sections are still full. What does this tell us? That most people choose to pay less for an economy seat, rather than pay more for a comfy seat.
A more apt comparison would be premium economy vs economy. From my limited experience - premium economy was always full even when there were places in economy.
I stopped flying too, though I didn't even consider it a health issue. For me it was a combination of high-minded idealistic principles (about liberty/fascism, consumerism and so forth) and just basic kneejerk hedonism (i.e. noticing "this process produces displeasure and unhappiness"). So I cut it out of my life. No big whup. I'm sure they miss my little $1,000/year even less than your $170,000[1] but I'm better off for it.
[1] ...which BTW they probably don't miss either, since it was probably replaced by 170 other willing consumers with $1,000 each, who haven't yet learned how unnecessary & shitty air travel is, or haven't yet acted on it.
But airline stocks have skyrocketed in the past 5 year as have their profits.
After the mergers of airlines, they realized that they have a captive market and don't have to care about service since there is only a limited number of choices for a large customer base. It's far more profitable to treat the customers are cattle who have no other option.
Oil prices are down, but the fares are still high. The seats are small, service is terrible, airports are congested, TSA is intrusive and the experience is horrible, but what can we do?
It's like internet service. When you have one or two large monopolies controlling an area, there is no incentive to treat customers well. Get mistreated by verizon go to comcast for more mistreatment.
It's funny looking back when airlines were merging that the CEOs were saying how cost savings and synergies of merged airlines will trickle down to the customers in the form of lower airfare and better service.
It was supposed to be a win-win for the companies and the customers.
Yeah, and like all trickle-down theories, it turned out to be complete BS. Those of us who lived through Reagan aren't surprised. It's really a genius example of doublespeak. How do you sell the public and regulators on a plan that takes wealth or benefit from the 99% and gives it to the 1%? You tell them it does the exact opposite of what it actually does. You tell them "Hey man it's all part of the plan! After all, the rich can't give you tons of money" [your money] "unless they have it first, amirite bro? Just sign here and all the riches will be yours!" Then later when the plan "just happens to" result in an upward rush of wealth & benefit, you say "oops it didn't work." Oh, it worked.
You can't blame TSA on the lack of competition, since it's effectively state mandated anyway. (Strictly speaking, airports aren't required to use TSA staff, but they're required to have the same intrusive security protocols.)
Seats are getting smaller and people (particularly Americans) are getting bigger. Last month I was in a full flight and I had the bad luck of having a 300+ pound man sit next to me. His physique extended beyond the boundary of the seat, taking probably a ~quarter of my space. The situation was ridiculous but all that the flight attendant could do was to be "sorry" because the flight was full. There should be rules against this. Big people out there - buy two seats.
It must be very different in the US... I often got put in places I simply cannot physically sit: I'm tall, have a lot of muscle and am overweight. All three not to the extreme, but i'm taller than most (I'm Dutch, close to 2m), my shoulders are wider than most and my lower body is large enough to fit 'snug' in a seat (but not hanging (over)). The tall part is the biggest issue here. In 'middle seats' on most airlines, I simply cannot fit; I cannot possibly sit there without putting my legs at both my neighbors. The normal response of the attendents usually was to move someone smaller from exit seats to mine. As I cannot sit and next to that I will cause discomfort to both my neighbors.
That said, now I just book exit seats or comfort seats, but when those are full this still happens. Some airlines, like Vueling, I just don't fly with anymore as they made the seats so small that most seats are too small to fit tall people in at all. But they also moved me to exit seats when that was the only flight I could take.
When there are obese people, they are routinely moved to business class (on inter europe flights; never saw it on an international flight) or exit seats; I saw this on Easyjet, Ryanair and BA. I haven't seen your situation occur here; I would refuse to fly to be honest. Just get the pilot out and ask his opinion; they have the last say. If you cannot sit (and if a quarter of your space is filled with someone else, for me that means I cannot sit), the pilot will agree it's not a safe situation for you.
There's no guarantee anymore that if the person bought two seats, that they would be together. A basic economy ticket won't even let you pick a seat in advance on some carriers anymore.
I really dislike flying and I avoid it since it's a miserable experience. And I'm not willing to pay 5-8x the economy rates for what I'd consider a tolerable experience in first class.
Yep, last Delta domestic flight I booked together with my girlfriend, we checked in a few hours before we got to the airport and got "see attendant" seats. We had to beg at the gate for two seats together. The ones they gave us were both middle seats in different rows. Pretty ridiculous for how expensive these were, and how Delta is now the exclusive non-stop service for the route we were taking.
The thing is that airlines don't always honour it if a big person buys two seats. They might admit another passenger last-minute, and then you paid for two full-price tickets and still have only one seat. It's not like big people enjoy the experience any more than you do. I'm thin myself, but blaming overweight people for terrible airline policies and other things beyond their control is not cool.
heh, brings back memories - I once spent a flight from Houston to Rio like this (~10 hours). There really should be a rule, that if you can't fit into your seat with the arm rests down, you don't get to flight.
I'm almost 6'2" and I basically won't fly coach anymore. It's miserable. I'd rather not go. Now I'm in the rather fortunate position that with some planning I can fly in a premium cabin. Many are not.
For me legroom is one issue but a bigger one is width. I am wider than a standard domestic coach seat such that if fly in one I'm competing for armrests or I'm hanging out into the aisle or I'm sitting in an uncomfortable position of squeezing my arms in. It's incredibly unpleasant.
The biggest problem for most airlines (from my perspective) is that coach continues to shrink and the jump to business can be massive like from $300 to $2000. That's where Premium Economy and things like JetBlue's Even More Legroom are good.
But I will optimize to have a longer trip with a layover than fly direct to avoid this problem. For example, I'll fly on American's older 737s and 767s in "First" transcon via DFW or ORD for ~$1000 return rather than $500 in coach direct or $2000+ in business direct (both of the last two on the newer A321Ts).
Premium Economy is a mixed bag though. Cathay Pacific's is quite good (with some caveats). British Airways I hear is PE in name only (well, name and cost for some reason).
Still, lie flat business class, particularly on international long haul is hard to beat.
If you're wider than the seat, you should be looking for flights operated on Airbus equipment if you're stuck in coach. Their narrowbodies are a little wider than Boeing's, and you end up with about 1" more of width in a coach seat. You're best off looking at E70/75/90 regional jets (also ~18" wide seats, but 2+2 config) and A319/320/321 mainline.
That's probably the biggest reason why JetBlue is an all around more comfortable experience. They fly exclusively A320/321 and E90 aircraft. Yeah they're configured with more legroom than the legacies, but every seat in the fleet is as wide as you'll find in a coach seat.
6'3" tall and 44" chest here. I fly almost every week. Anything less than Economy Plus/Premium is pure torture. Even in Economy Plus I still usually bump shoulders with the fellow next to me. If he's big like me we might as well be cuddling.
I'm flying Seattle to Boston on Monday. I had to buy first class, there's no fucking way I'm doing that trip in anything less. Did I mention I have back problems (like many Americans).
Thank God I have the means and airline status to travel better. It really is a bus in the sky.
The sad truth is, airlines won't optimize for the 99th percentile. We tall people just have to grin and bear it. I'm 6'10" and I basically just take the viewpoint that I'm lucky that airplanes exist at all to make it possible to cross such great distances in such short times. But I fly seldom so I'm sure I'd sing a different tune if I had to fly on any kind of regular basis.
In economy it is basically not possible for the person in front of me to recline. And boy do they try! Some especially inconsiderate ones even keep trying after they realize what they are doing. But I bring kneepads these days so it is not especially bothersome.
This is why I fly pretty much exclusively American. Not because American is the best airlines (it is not, but hey it's not United either). But because if I optimized solely for cost I wouldn't have any status on any airline. I'd be the first one bumped. I'd have worse seats and I'd be upgraded less.
People like to bitch about how airlines treat them like crap but at the same time they often don't have any loyalty to any airline. What do you expect?
Just this last flight from NYC to SFO I got upgraded to (lie-flat) business class for "free" (it cost I think 6 500-mile stickers but I have like 100 of those so who cares?). My AA status also multiplies all the miles I earn on AA and oneworld flights. That's worth something.
I just wish AA had PE. Main Cabin "Plus" is not the same thing.
British airways PE is actually not that bad. It's not as good as Cathay Pacific's but the hard product is quite good. Pitch is 38 inch (same as Cathay's) so it's good enough, it's not that wide at 18.5 inch (1 inch less than CX) but better than a coach seat.
This may sound contrarian, but I'm happy that airlines are shrinking seats, and adding a few rows of "Economy Plus" for people that need/want their space back. Flight prices have been falling for the last decade, in part due to these smaller seats, and I've been able to travel much more than I otherwise would have as a result. I'd love to have a bit more space, but I'll take my $600 round-trip tickets from SF to Europe over a marginal increase in comfort any day.
I'm 6'4" and I can assure you that for me at least it's not a "marginal" increase in comfort. For me, 10 yrs ago, a standard economy seat on a major airline was OK. My knees grazed the seat in front, but whatever. Now, today, on several major airlines, in standard Econo, my knees not only touch but my upper legs cannot, geometrically, sit straight. My legs have to be splayed apart, because the fwd/back distance is literally too little for my femur bone. With my hips jammed into the seat back, my legs cannot fit, sitting straight ahead. This is insane for me.
Yes I can pay more for one of the Econo-plus seats ... but I should not have to. 6'4" is not average, yes, I realize, but so what---it's a genetic tax then? If I want to fly I have to pay more? If I were too "wide" you might say (though you shouldn't), my fault, I should lose weight. But what am I supposed to do? Saw my ankles off?
If I were the worlds tallest person, sure, you could claim exceptional circumstances. But 6'4" is not that exceptional, I submit to you.
PS I'm not criticizing you of course... only making the point that for many of us, this has become an exceptionally frustrating (and costly) experience.
This IS a genetic tax, but I propose to you that even if you are treated unfairly on airlines, that doesn't make up for all the advantages of height over the course of your lifetime.
As someone who is 5 foot 5 inches tall, I receive many benefits, like being able to buy my suits from children's clothing section. But if I was given the opportunity to trade my height for yours, I would pay more for my air travel every day.
> it's a genetic tax then? If I want to fly I have to pay more?
I mean, maybe? The simple truth is that if you want to fly someone needs to pay more, because you weigh more and occupy more space in the vehicle. Is air travel something that should be subsidized in some way or not? I'm not sure that I see a clear answer here.
Alternatively: There are many financial inequalities that stem from genetics or circumstance. Is this the one we want to be fighting for?
As a 6'8" guy (with long thigh bones) you are making a minor problem out to be a major one. Yes, we have to splay our legs a little bit but I have no problem doing long haul flights in economy.
What exactly is causing you this great discomfort? Personally the act of sitting down for so long is far more painful than anything my height causes.
I'm 6'3" and have many of the same issues. I recognise that things in life are not always going to be fair and that many of these things ultimately even out (we probably save money walking where other take cabs or performing household maintenance shorter people find difficulty).
My bigger concern is the issue for traveling for work, which I do quite frequently. It does seem unfair that in order to not be in miserable pain for hours, taller people must shell out of pocket for doing something that is just part of their job. In fact, I wish airlines actually forced taller people to upgrade. That would make it so that my employer and people inviting me to give talks would be forced to pay for the upgrade to economy plus or business class.
Yes, it is a genetic penalty in the sense that tons of things in life are genetic penalties / rewards. Happy with your IQ? Sad about your attractiveness? Have to spend money on acne cream? Have to buy feminine hygiene products? Not seen as attractive by the opposite gender? Sad about your lack of ability to be a professional baseball pitcher?
It's life, get over it.
Not to mention, I'm going to guess that you wouldn't trade your position with someone who's 5'4", even though you'd save a few bucks on flights.
I'm 6'2", and I can cope with the legroom issue (though it makes using a laptop pretty much impossible).
But I have a problem with the 18" and smaller widths, and not due to abdominal or hip fat. My shoulders are just too wide -- on some planes, an aisle seat is the only thing that's comfortable unless the person next to me is small or someone I can occasionally take some space from without seeming like a jerk.
Now that I'm in my late-30s and often have occasional stiff shoulders or neck for other reasons, I've started to pay this "genetic tax" of premium seats more and more often.
Also 6’4” - back in the day (10 years ago) when I was checking in more often than not I’d be offered an exit row seat... no chance of that happening now.
You act like this is uncommon for you. Taller people have to pay more for cloths, buy larger cars, and consume more food. You pay more in gas to transport the extra weight. There are probably many more this isn't some weird thing.
Southwest will let you pre-board if you are 6'3"+. I did that for several years until they banned pre-boards from sitting in the exit rows. It's only usefull now for getting the bulkhead seats.
I'm 6'3" but have not flown since probably 2002. I have no desire since the whole TSA thing. I couldn't imagine the hell a 5 hour flight would be on me, much less longer.
"The Embraer offers one of the best antidotes to the shrinking seat in Jet Blue’s “Even More Space” rows. The pitch between rows – that’s the measurement between one seatback and the next – is 39 inches, plus one of the widest seats at 18.5 inches. The regular coach seat is the same width but the pitch is reduced to 32 inches, in itself not that bad.
... Delta has also annoyed Boeing by placing a huge order for what is a rare phenomenon: an airplane designed from the start to give coach passengers a big break in comforts, the Canadian Bombardier CS300 ... There are three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other. Aware of the stigma attached to the middle seat Bombardier made it a tad wider, at 19 inches. The other seats are still a generous 18.5 inches wide. Can you imagine, somebody thought the middle seat should, in George’s words, be made “more tolerable”?"
I hate to rain on the author's parade, but there's nothing inherent in the design of the newer Embraer jets which makes it so the seats "can't be shrunk".
The reason why the E-jets are so nice is that the big carriers buy them to use on their regional affiliate flights, and the typical pilots' contract puts the dividing line of regional and mainline at 76 seats. So as long as they put exactly 76 seats (or fewer, but that's less common) in the plane, they can farm it out to a much cheaper regional operation and crew. If they put a 77th seat in there, they also have to put a more expensive mainline crew on the plane.
Thus, the E-jets tend to have almost unheard-of amounts of space even in economy, because the airlines have worked out they would lose more money from squeezing seats in and having to pay a mainline crew than they'd make from the extra seats.
Indeed, most airlines around Europe that fly E-jets have less legroom in economy because normal economics are in play (cost sensitive customers, maximise number of customers) as there isn't the same mainline/regional split (where European airlines have regional arms, they're typically fully-owned subsidiaries and essentially differentially by type of aircraft rather than capacity limitations).
However, the fuselage is not wide enough to cram in an extra seat per row, so you still have the widest coach seat in the sky. Width matters more than pitch if you're average height, IMO.
You did hit on a good point though. The nice part about the E90 as well is that airlines won't cram in any more seats because they'd have to add a flight attendant as well once they hit 101 seats!
I just wish that, if they're gonna shrink the seats, they would prevent them from reclining. That, I think is a big part of the reason why the smaller sizes are so terrible.
A few months back, I had a pretty terrible experience on a flight when the woman directly in front of me, who was maybe 5'2 and 120 pounds, decided to recline her seat all the way back. It made what was already a cramped flight for me (I'm definitely not 5'2 nor 120 pounds) pure torture. I did all I could to try to convince her to push it up, but she wouldn't.
The flight attendant—this was Delta, by the way, so screw them-sided with the person in front, saying it was "their right" to recline their seat in a way that makes people uncomfortable.
This was on top of a bad flight situation where I was dropped off to a different city than my luggage because my connecting flight was delayed.
The flight attendant tried to appease me with beer. She would have better appeased me had she ignored her airline's policy in what clearly was an unfair situation.
That's the problem with flying these days. They constantly force passengers to choose between one undesirable choice and another, and nobody is happy as a result.
Look mate, I am sorry to break the news for you but the woman in front of you was totally within her rights to push her seat down. This is not something that is granted from the back passenger in a plane. BTW, there are seats with more space near the emergency exits that can be bought for a small fee. If you are big you may want to consider that.
Actually reminds me of a crazy bitch that insisted that I don't push my seat down, while at he same time had her seat pushed down (guess it is called "maximizing space"). But this was nothing that could not get fixed with a short yelling at her.
Maybe it shouldn't be within her rights, is all I'm saying. The airlines could fix this easily. If the seats didn't decline, then there wouldn't be an issue. This is only an issue because they were designed in a way that allowed for such reclining.
It's a bad design choice with such limited space to add functionality that complicates an already tenuous situation.
This forum is one that frequently discusses issues of inefficiency and good design. How is it that these seats, specifically their unnecessary ability to decline, aren't seen as an example of bad design? Very few seating options need reclining capabilities, especially on short flights.
If reclining the seat will crush the knees of the person behind you, the seat shall remain in its upright position. The mechanical ability to do a thing is not a justification.
well you have also right to fart, burp and do other things but we have something called manners, you know, for situations where your can legally annoy other people, usually normal people try to be nice to each other and not be dicks like reclining seat if there is behind me 2m tall person
if you think just because you have right to do something it's ok to do it i feel sorry for people around you
It's an American cultural phenomenon. I've always been intrigued by the origin of it. At some point someone even invented and sold a device to prevent the person in front of you to recline their seat:
I guess at some point someone popularized the notion that people reclining in front of you is a form of disrespect and it stuck in people's minds. I'm over 6ft tall and I hate coach seats as much as anyone (and living in South America, flying is usually an endeavor taking over 8 hours a pop) but I have never felt that the person reclining in front of me was wronging me in any way.
It might have to do with the usual brevity of domestic flights within the US (also leading to the colorful concept of a "redeye" flight).
Pretty sure they are saying that no one should get the right to recline their seats when the seats have gotten small enough that someone that's 6'4" (I am) has to sit with knees pushed into the seat in front already before the person in front reclines...
Then it's not unfair to bump them seat when using the restroom. I paid for a certain amount of space, which includes the ability to get up from the seat.
There is a place in hell for people that recline in coach. The 2" of reclining doesn't help anyone's comfort that much. It's the difference between being "mostly miserable" and "pretty miserable", like the difference between lowering the air temperature in a hotel room from 79 to 78 on a summer night.
I never recline (6'1) if I have to fly coach. It's disruptive to the person behind me, either their legs or if they are trying to work on a computer. Saying "it's their right!" is just a proxy for doing the reasonable and personable thing.
It's not just the space; reclining can be the difference between being stable or not. Often when sleeping in an upright seat, my CoG is such that I'll lean left/right/forward. Reclining at even a small angle prevent this.
Why, oh why don't reclining seats move the seat forward when they recline? Something like home recliners do. That way people are sacrificing their own leg room.
Cathay Pacific did this years ago with economy clamshell seats, i.e slide forward, but apparently aggregate consumer feedback was bad and they were all withdrawn. Shame.
Boeing sells planes to airlines, not consumers. Our happiness is irrelevant because no one offers the reclining chairs, and no one wants to be the first-to-market because that's a risky investment given airline company's razor thin margins.
Yea, I've never really understood reclining seats, especially on domestic flights. I've certainly never used mine, excluding 18 hr flights or something like that during the times when pretty much everyone is catching some shuteye (it doesn't really matter if the person in front of you is reclined if you are too).
I have low orexin (but fortunately not full-blown narcolepsy, like my sibling). It basically means that I fall asleep in any airline cabin the instant the safety briefing ends, and wake up when the wheels touch pavement. If I don't recline, and wedge my head in place somehow, I always wake up with severe neck pain, because my head lolls into uncomfortable positions.
Airline flying is simply too boring for my brain to be able to stay awake for it.
Aircraft are not assigned to the same routes at the same times every day. They're chopped and changed all the time. It's impossible to have different configurations for different aircraft.
I completely disagree. I have a neck problem and not being able to recline the seat will completely kill me for any flight longer than an hour.
Also, how exactly does the seat in front reclining affect your comfort? Not being able to recline my own seat affects my comfort far, far more than the seat in front of me being reclined.
If you are a tall person, the reclined seat jams into your knees. Talk to me about your lack of reclining being worse when you literally can't move your knees for 4 hours because there's a hard piece of plastic jammed into your kneecaps. I'm 6'2'' which is tall but not unreasonably tall.
I didn't have enough space to even hold my phone in front of my face to read it because she had reclined back so far.
You have to remember that there are a lot of people on the plane of different shapes and sizes, so what might not bother you might be a huge problem for someone else.
People reclining the seat in front of me in economy makes the flight basically unbearable for me. That's why I will never fly economy again for flights > 2 hours. From your comment I guess you are not very tall.
Few months back I was in coach working away on my laptop and the person in front decided to jam their seat all the way back. I barely managed to move my laptop before the screen got caught in the table lip thingy.
Personally, I'd be fine with less leg space (despite being 6') if it meant wider seats. I really don't enjoy being shoulder to shoulder or being smacked whenever they roll the cart by.
I'm 6'6" with broad shoulders. I can't take the window seat because of the curve of the plan. I usually have to take an aisle seat where I can (and also pay the extra for the legroom). The problem with the aisle seat, on long-haul flights at least, is that my shoulder sticks out a little, and every. single. fucker. walking by strikes it. I can walk down the aisle without hitting anything, but apparently no-one else in the known universe can. Tall, short, fat, thin, all of them. It's like people just slalom off the sides of chairs for fun.
It's not like I'm taking up a third of the aisle with my shoulder, it's only a couple of inches, but my opinion of the general public is notably worse after a long-haul flight.
That's the scenario that scares me on flights. I've rescued my laptop in the nick of time a couple of times. I was pretty sure it was going to break one time.
The worst part is would they pay for it? The airline obviously wouldn't. Would the passenger? If they refused would the airline give me their info to file a claim? I assume not.
So I'd be stuck buying a new computer - and probably without a computer for part of the trip - while I did nothing wrong.
> Few months back I was in coach working away on my laptop and the person in front decided to jam their seat all the way back. I barely managed to move my laptop before the screen got caught in the table lip thingy.
If it was really pressing down on the top of the laptop's screen with significant force, wouldn't it push the tray table to extend toward you, relieving the pressure? Or are you not opening your laptop beyond 90 degrees?
I don't undrstand this. You know the seat can recline. I always position my laptop so the screen would be pushed closed instead of being jammed, in case the seat in front of me suddenly reclines. Maybe there isn't a configuration that allows this; then it's a calculated risk to use the computer anyway.
I wonder why this seat reclining problem has not been solved yet.
It doesn't seem that complicated, actually at least French trains have solved this by making reclining seats slide down their frame (and forward) instead of actually recline backwards into the rear passenger's space. It works really well, and the result is that reclining uses the reclining person's space and cannot bother anyone else.
However, these trains have more leg space and sturdier seats than regular planes, so maybe it's more difficult to achieve on a plane?
I'd imagine such a mechanism would be a decent bit heavier than standard airline recliners (as mentioned in the article, "Today, an economy seat that tips the scales above 9 kilograms (20 pounds) is, by an airline’s measure, too heavy to fly")
Also, if the seats slide downwards, does that impinge on the small luggage space underneath the seat for the person behind?
this is largely going to be bad seat design, I suggest that you try and put your dollars with a different airline or choose flights on an aircraft with a better setup.
I agree with you on this fact. My last flight swapped carriers and one had significantly better seats than the other. (This also happened on a regional jet, which I think exacerbated the problem.)
But I think part of it is also location. Some airports are only served by one or two airlines, effectively limiting choice. So the result is that if I wanna get home, I'm stuck riding with the bad airline.
I generally prefer the train when the distance is reasonable enough.
I am always pleasantly surprised when people in front don't push back their seats. I make sure I don't to the person behind me but it's a domino effect if the person in front does. It's this weird phenomenon.
There are two things that I use to make economy flight bearable
- Stand for 30 min, then sit for 30 min or so. You will be surprised by how much better you feel by the end of the flight. I just grab Kindle and read it standing in the isle on domestic or walk to the back of the plane on widebody international flights (usually there is space there).
Spirit is able to have the seats closer together than any other airline because of this. Their seat pitch is 28 inches, as compared to 30 or 31 for most others.
>Faced with a choice between discomfort and higher fares, most travelers choose discomfort
That's really bad. Down here in Europe, most good airlines have gone bankrupt, with people preferring budget carries with their shitty service. And even there, i usually pay as little as $25 or so to get emergency exit row with great (~36") pitch as opposed to standard 29"! Seats - just 12 per plane - are nearly always available! People absolutely vote with their money for the service as shitty as it gets. And that's not because they don't have money - they travel more and more, airlines are booming - they are just that scrappy and don't respect themselves. Bad.
I may sound like a commie but at times i feel that the government must step in and mandate some decent minimum standard of service, like minimum seat width not being narrower than standard on 737 (to prevent airlines from squeezing 8 in a row on 767 or 10 in a row on 777), and minimum 32" pitch. It would be impossible for any particular airline but will be easy for them as a whole. With tickets being so ultra cheap as they are now, nobody will even mention the extra 10 euros per leg or so.
I wouldn't put it that easily. I think I've flown 60/40 with "normal" airlines vs budget - when my times are fixed I can't really choose to vote with my wallet and, more importantly, leg room and service have not been better or worse - no matter the airline, it was simply hit and miss - all.the.time.
Thing is, people who can pick airline, pick the budget ones. Which cause normal ones to die out. Then, guys like you have to pick a budget airline because there is frequently no normal one on the route any longer...
I suspect that part of the problem is that airline seats aren't advertised in a way that allows consumers to effectively comparison shop. Consumers aren't aware of or can't tell the difference between the "economy" seats offered by different airlines, and so there's a race to the bottom.
Imagine if regulation required describing the seat with a couple of factors such as the "pitch", the width of the seat, and/or the total volume of space dedicated to the passenger. When shopping for tickets, instead of displaying purely the cabin class, the tickets would be characterized by their space and comfort (measured objectively).
Consumers might think twice before selecting the ticket that's cheaper by $25 if they can see up front that it has 3 inches less legroom.
Yes! I now exclusively use Google Flight Search because of this (and as a result routinely and happily pay more to fly on airlines that have sane seat pitches)
Readit News
> Faced with a choice between discomfort and higher fares, most travelers choose discomfort
Airlines are still in business so the execs think that things are running smoothly. At my peak, I was spending roughly $70k/year on my own flights and probably another $100k for my partner and employees. Now I spend $0. Not a big hit to the airline, but I'm not the only one. Long before airline scandals I ran into the fact that the airlines that I was loyal to made decision after decision that clearly told me they didn't care about my business. So I left. It wasn't an easy decision. But they pushed hard enough that it became a health decision for me and not a business decision. The little stress points that they added to my life compounded enough to the point where they became big. So I stopped.
All around the country companies are finding ways to avoid flying altogether. Web conferencing and video conferencing solutions are better than they were 15 years ago, but not significantly. The acceptance of remote work isn't just a budget decision, it's a productivity one. The decision to fly now involves up to 4 hours a week on top of flight times and time to and from the airport. Internet access is terrible at most airports and on most flights.
Air travel was once something to look forward to. Now, for the most part, it's simply not. TSA has played a big part, making the experience miserable in a way that only a government agency can. But most of the trouble with flying is really due to airline executive decisions.
I'm 6'3", with long upper legs, so this is a serious issue for me. It's torturous to fly... literally. Either I don't fly, or pay extortionate sums to upgrade.
Airlines should be forced to put the legroom space on the ticket and required to honor it. I bet things would be much different if consumers knew how badly they were getting fucked over in clear detail.
There's nothing I can do about that.
I positively hate flying.
which brings up another point, unless you are taking those one off sale seats always check the prices of first class. a small fee could land you at the front of the plane with preferential boarding.
Frankly in a crash landing (even a hard landing), anyone as tall as we are is going to have at least a broken nose.
Not sure what it takes to rectify this situation.
I'm 1.97 tall and standard economy class seats are a torture to me. When I travel for personal reasons, I avoid planes whenever possible and otherwise, at any flight longer than one hour I buy at least an upgrade to a so-called "premium economy" seat or an emergency exit seat (which used to be free, but now they charge extra for them too). I could also do that for work flights out of my own pocket, but I find the concept of paying for work flights quite outrageous, apart from the fact that in some flights I would need to pay half my monthly salary for the upgrade.
I'm hoping for regulation to impose a minimum seat pitch, it's the only thing that can save me from torturous flights in the short term (the other would be a local regulation that people over a certain dimensions can be paid a better ticket in public sector travel, but I think hell will freeze over before that, because austerity, etc.).
> When I travel for personal reasons, I avoid planes whenever possible and otherwise, at any flight longer than one hour I buy at least an upgrade to a so-called "premium economy" seat or an emergency exit seat (which used to be free, but now they charge extra for them too).
This looks to me like you're actually making a choice.
The thing is basically people are incredibly price conscious on booking flights. It's commoditized with the way people search for flights. Arguably this is because the industries IT systems are so old school that data such as seat pitch can't be easily syndicated so 3rd parties can show it, but I'm not sure if people would care enough.
Compared to most rubbish US carriers like United...They are cheap (you don't care if you miss a flight too much for a meeting), they take off and (more importantly) land pretty much on time. The airplanes seats are decent, the website and app have gotten much better and they have calmed down some of the more annoying crap like jingles and stuff.
Revenue, was higher in 2014 than 2015 or 2016. https://www.statista.com/statistics/197680/total-operating-r...
So, yes all things equal people fly more when flights costs significantly less. That does not the industry makes more profit from smaller seats.
I love flying! Best way to sit down and chill for a fee hours with a good book. The internet is too crappy to be useful, the seats too cramped to do real work, so I chill and I read. It's honestly very relaxing and I enjoy it.
Yes I could do it without flying, but I find it hard to relax when I both have work to do and the ability to do it.
Plus I'm short enough that I can fully extend my legs under the seat in front of me even in coach. That helps a lot.
> > Faced with a choice between discomfort and higher fares, most travelers choose discomfort"
If that's the article's premise, then it's correct. Even though there are many more economy seats on each plane than their are business or first, the economy sections are still full. What does this tell us? That most people choose to pay less for an economy seat, rather than pay more for a comfy seat.
No, it tells us that the cost is not wortg the extras for most people. Important distinction.
On transatlantic flights the difference between economy and business can be as much as 4x. That's a lot.
[1] ...which BTW they probably don't miss either, since it was probably replaced by 170 other willing consumers with $1,000 each, who haven't yet learned how unnecessary & shitty air travel is, or haven't yet acted on it.
After the mergers of airlines, they realized that they have a captive market and don't have to care about service since there is only a limited number of choices for a large customer base. It's far more profitable to treat the customers are cattle who have no other option.
Oil prices are down, but the fares are still high. The seats are small, service is terrible, airports are congested, TSA is intrusive and the experience is horrible, but what can we do?
It's like internet service. When you have one or two large monopolies controlling an area, there is no incentive to treat customers well. Get mistreated by verizon go to comcast for more mistreatment.
It's funny looking back when airlines were merging that the CEOs were saying how cost savings and synergies of merged airlines will trickle down to the customers in the form of lower airfare and better service.
It was supposed to be a win-win for the companies and the customers.
That said, now I just book exit seats or comfort seats, but when those are full this still happens. Some airlines, like Vueling, I just don't fly with anymore as they made the seats so small that most seats are too small to fit tall people in at all. But they also moved me to exit seats when that was the only flight I could take.
When there are obese people, they are routinely moved to business class (on inter europe flights; never saw it on an international flight) or exit seats; I saw this on Easyjet, Ryanair and BA. I haven't seen your situation occur here; I would refuse to fly to be honest. Just get the pilot out and ask his opinion; they have the last say. If you cannot sit (and if a quarter of your space is filled with someone else, for me that means I cannot sit), the pilot will agree it's not a safe situation for you.
I really dislike flying and I avoid it since it's a miserable experience. And I'm not willing to pay 5-8x the economy rates for what I'd consider a tolerable experience in first class.
I really hope someone makes a website that reflects the true cost of using an airline. So many hidden fees and gotchas. It's a race to the bottom.
See https://twitter.com/i/moments/887384300081098752 for an account of what it's like.
For me legroom is one issue but a bigger one is width. I am wider than a standard domestic coach seat such that if fly in one I'm competing for armrests or I'm hanging out into the aisle or I'm sitting in an uncomfortable position of squeezing my arms in. It's incredibly unpleasant.
The biggest problem for most airlines (from my perspective) is that coach continues to shrink and the jump to business can be massive like from $300 to $2000. That's where Premium Economy and things like JetBlue's Even More Legroom are good.
But I will optimize to have a longer trip with a layover than fly direct to avoid this problem. For example, I'll fly on American's older 737s and 767s in "First" transcon via DFW or ORD for ~$1000 return rather than $500 in coach direct or $2000+ in business direct (both of the last two on the newer A321Ts).
Premium Economy is a mixed bag though. Cathay Pacific's is quite good (with some caveats). British Airways I hear is PE in name only (well, name and cost for some reason).
Still, lie flat business class, particularly on international long haul is hard to beat.
That's probably the biggest reason why JetBlue is an all around more comfortable experience. They fly exclusively A320/321 and E90 aircraft. Yeah they're configured with more legroom than the legacies, but every seat in the fleet is as wide as you'll find in a coach seat.
I'm flying Seattle to Boston on Monday. I had to buy first class, there's no fucking way I'm doing that trip in anything less. Did I mention I have back problems (like many Americans).
Thank God I have the means and airline status to travel better. It really is a bus in the sky.
Might as well have standing room too.
In economy it is basically not possible for the person in front of me to recline. And boy do they try! Some especially inconsiderate ones even keep trying after they realize what they are doing. But I bring kneepads these days so it is not especially bothersome.
I'd say it's worse. The buses I've been on have been far more comfortable than a plane, and I'm not even wide or tall.
This is why I fly pretty much exclusively American. Not because American is the best airlines (it is not, but hey it's not United either). But because if I optimized solely for cost I wouldn't have any status on any airline. I'd be the first one bumped. I'd have worse seats and I'd be upgraded less.
People like to bitch about how airlines treat them like crap but at the same time they often don't have any loyalty to any airline. What do you expect?
Just this last flight from NYC to SFO I got upgraded to (lie-flat) business class for "free" (it cost I think 6 500-mile stickers but I have like 100 of those so who cares?). My AA status also multiplies all the miles I earn on AA and oneworld flights. That's worth something.
I just wish AA had PE. Main Cabin "Plus" is not the same thing.
So it is better than coach, but only by a few inches. It is generally priced appropriately, though.
Yes I can pay more for one of the Econo-plus seats ... but I should not have to. 6'4" is not average, yes, I realize, but so what---it's a genetic tax then? If I want to fly I have to pay more? If I were too "wide" you might say (though you shouldn't), my fault, I should lose weight. But what am I supposed to do? Saw my ankles off?
If I were the worlds tallest person, sure, you could claim exceptional circumstances. But 6'4" is not that exceptional, I submit to you.
PS I'm not criticizing you of course... only making the point that for many of us, this has become an exceptionally frustrating (and costly) experience.
As someone who is 5 foot 5 inches tall, I receive many benefits, like being able to buy my suits from children's clothing section. But if I was given the opportunity to trade my height for yours, I would pay more for my air travel every day.
I mean, maybe? The simple truth is that if you want to fly someone needs to pay more, because you weigh more and occupy more space in the vehicle. Is air travel something that should be subsidized in some way or not? I'm not sure that I see a clear answer here.
Alternatively: There are many financial inequalities that stem from genetics or circumstance. Is this the one we want to be fighting for?
What exactly is causing you this great discomfort? Personally the act of sitting down for so long is far more painful than anything my height causes.
My bigger concern is the issue for traveling for work, which I do quite frequently. It does seem unfair that in order to not be in miserable pain for hours, taller people must shell out of pocket for doing something that is just part of their job. In fact, I wish airlines actually forced taller people to upgrade. That would make it so that my employer and people inviting me to give talks would be forced to pay for the upgrade to economy plus or business class.
Yes, it is a genetic penalty in the sense that tons of things in life are genetic penalties / rewards. Happy with your IQ? Sad about your attractiveness? Have to spend money on acne cream? Have to buy feminine hygiene products? Not seen as attractive by the opposite gender? Sad about your lack of ability to be a professional baseball pitcher?
It's life, get over it.
Not to mention, I'm going to guess that you wouldn't trade your position with someone who's 5'4", even though you'd save a few bucks on flights.
But I have a problem with the 18" and smaller widths, and not due to abdominal or hip fat. My shoulders are just too wide -- on some planes, an aisle seat is the only thing that's comfortable unless the person next to me is small or someone I can occasionally take some space from without seeming like a jerk.
Now that I'm in my late-30s and often have occasional stiff shoulders or neck for other reasons, I've started to pay this "genetic tax" of premium seats more and more often.
I don't see how that would help your femur-length problem.
Do I get special accomomodations in society for being short? Where's my dating rights lawsuit?
Perhaps airlines can squeeze more passengers on and reduce fares enough that it covers the cost of having to upgrade your ticket.
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"Modern" regular airline seats are a nightmare for people over 6' tall.
"The Embraer offers one of the best antidotes to the shrinking seat in Jet Blue’s “Even More Space” rows. The pitch between rows – that’s the measurement between one seatback and the next – is 39 inches, plus one of the widest seats at 18.5 inches. The regular coach seat is the same width but the pitch is reduced to 32 inches, in itself not that bad.
... Delta has also annoyed Boeing by placing a huge order for what is a rare phenomenon: an airplane designed from the start to give coach passengers a big break in comforts, the Canadian Bombardier CS300 ... There are three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other. Aware of the stigma attached to the middle seat Bombardier made it a tad wider, at 19 inches. The other seats are still a generous 18.5 inches wide. Can you imagine, somebody thought the middle seat should, in George’s words, be made “more tolerable”?"
The reason why the E-jets are so nice is that the big carriers buy them to use on their regional affiliate flights, and the typical pilots' contract puts the dividing line of regional and mainline at 76 seats. So as long as they put exactly 76 seats (or fewer, but that's less common) in the plane, they can farm it out to a much cheaper regional operation and crew. If they put a 77th seat in there, they also have to put a more expensive mainline crew on the plane.
Thus, the E-jets tend to have almost unheard-of amounts of space even in economy, because the airlines have worked out they would lose more money from squeezing seats in and having to pay a mainline crew than they'd make from the extra seats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_clause
You did hit on a good point though. The nice part about the E90 as well is that airlines won't cram in any more seats because they'd have to add a flight attendant as well once they hit 101 seats!
A few months back, I had a pretty terrible experience on a flight when the woman directly in front of me, who was maybe 5'2 and 120 pounds, decided to recline her seat all the way back. It made what was already a cramped flight for me (I'm definitely not 5'2 nor 120 pounds) pure torture. I did all I could to try to convince her to push it up, but she wouldn't.
The flight attendant—this was Delta, by the way, so screw them-sided with the person in front, saying it was "their right" to recline their seat in a way that makes people uncomfortable.
This was on top of a bad flight situation where I was dropped off to a different city than my luggage because my connecting flight was delayed.
The flight attendant tried to appease me with beer. She would have better appeased me had she ignored her airline's policy in what clearly was an unfair situation.
That's the problem with flying these days. They constantly force passengers to choose between one undesirable choice and another, and nobody is happy as a result.
Actually reminds me of a crazy bitch that insisted that I don't push my seat down, while at he same time had her seat pushed down (guess it is called "maximizing space"). But this was nothing that could not get fixed with a short yelling at her.
It's a bad design choice with such limited space to add functionality that complicates an already tenuous situation.
This forum is one that frequently discusses issues of inefficiency and good design. How is it that these seats, specifically their unnecessary ability to decline, aren't seen as an example of bad design? Very few seating options need reclining capabilities, especially on short flights.
if you think just because you have right to do something it's ok to do it i feel sorry for people around you
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Now I'm not saying she shouldn't have brought it back up when you asked. I know I would have. But there's no fairness doctrine here.
It'd be unfair if you are the sole arbiter of who gets to recline their seat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knee_Defender
I guess at some point someone popularized the notion that people reclining in front of you is a form of disrespect and it stuck in people's minds. I'm over 6ft tall and I hate coach seats as much as anyone (and living in South America, flying is usually an endeavor taking over 8 hours a pop) but I have never felt that the person reclining in front of me was wronging me in any way.
It might have to do with the usual brevity of domestic flights within the US (also leading to the colorful concept of a "redeye" flight).
I never recline (6'1) if I have to fly coach. It's disruptive to the person behind me, either their legs or if they are trying to work on a computer. Saying "it's their right!" is just a proxy for doing the reasonable and personable thing.
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Airline flying is simply too boring for my brain to be able to stay awake for it.
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Also, how exactly does the seat in front reclining affect your comfort? Not being able to recline my own seat affects my comfort far, far more than the seat in front of me being reclined.
You have to remember that there are a lot of people on the plane of different shapes and sizes, so what might not bother you might be a huge problem for someone else.
Personally, I'd be fine with less leg space (despite being 6') if it meant wider seats. I really don't enjoy being shoulder to shoulder or being smacked whenever they roll the cart by.
It's not like I'm taking up a third of the aisle with my shoulder, it's only a couple of inches, but my opinion of the general public is notably worse after a long-haul flight.
The worst part is would they pay for it? The airline obviously wouldn't. Would the passenger? If they refused would the airline give me their info to file a claim? I assume not.
So I'd be stuck buying a new computer - and probably without a computer for part of the trip - while I did nothing wrong.
If it was really pressing down on the top of the laptop's screen with significant force, wouldn't it push the tray table to extend toward you, relieving the pressure? Or are you not opening your laptop beyond 90 degrees?
It doesn't seem that complicated, actually at least French trains have solved this by making reclining seats slide down their frame (and forward) instead of actually recline backwards into the rear passenger's space. It works really well, and the result is that reclining uses the reclining person's space and cannot bother anyone else.
However, these trains have more leg space and sturdier seats than regular planes, so maybe it's more difficult to achieve on a plane?
Also, if the seats slide downwards, does that impinge on the small luggage space underneath the seat for the person behind?
But I think part of it is also location. Some airports are only served by one or two airlines, effectively limiting choice. So the result is that if I wanna get home, I'm stuck riding with the bad airline.
I generally prefer the train when the distance is reasonable enough.
- Stand for 30 min, then sit for 30 min or so. You will be surprised by how much better you feel by the end of the flight. I just grab Kindle and read it standing in the isle on domestic or walk to the back of the plane on widebody international flights (usually there is space there).
- Use inflatable pillow like this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06WVR48SW. You will get much better sleep with it
Though flight attendants probably don't give a
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If the person behind you bumps you continually, recline your seat.
That's really bad. Down here in Europe, most good airlines have gone bankrupt, with people preferring budget carries with their shitty service. And even there, i usually pay as little as $25 or so to get emergency exit row with great (~36") pitch as opposed to standard 29"! Seats - just 12 per plane - are nearly always available! People absolutely vote with their money for the service as shitty as it gets. And that's not because they don't have money - they travel more and more, airlines are booming - they are just that scrappy and don't respect themselves. Bad.
I may sound like a commie but at times i feel that the government must step in and mandate some decent minimum standard of service, like minimum seat width not being narrower than standard on 737 (to prevent airlines from squeezing 8 in a row on 767 or 10 in a row on 777), and minimum 32" pitch. It would be impossible for any particular airline but will be easy for them as a whole. With tickets being so ultra cheap as they are now, nobody will even mention the extra 10 euros per leg or so.
Imagine if regulation required describing the seat with a couple of factors such as the "pitch", the width of the seat, and/or the total volume of space dedicated to the passenger. When shopping for tickets, instead of displaying purely the cabin class, the tickets would be characterized by their space and comfort (measured objectively).
Consumers might think twice before selecting the ticket that's cheaper by $25 if they can see up front that it has 3 inches less legroom.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/1...
Yes, the frequent flyers know this stuff by heart.