There's no need for scare quotes here. There is a legitimate safety concern: airlines have packed their aircraft with so many seats that it's not possible, in an emergency, to evacuate safely and quickly. The usual certification procedure for a new type of aircraft calls for simulating an evacuation with half of the doors inoperable, and requires everyone out (literally out, not merely "queued up at a door waiting to get out") within 90 seconds from the order to evacuate.
And the argument is that while this is achievable in test conditions, the test conditions tend to involve cabin configurations less dense than what the airlines fly, which means the 90-second evacuation target cannot be met with the planes as they're actually flown. Enforcing changes to return to compliance with the 90-second evacuation does not require enacting any new seat-width or legroom regulations, which is why it's an attractive option for people who want to get something done ("enforce this existing thing" is easier than "draft and enact a new thing").
There are also concerns about survivability of high-density cabins, based on lack of room between rows; flight attendant seats are the place to look here, because they're designed to have a certain minimum amount of space available for a flight attendant's head to swing in the event of a sudden jerk of the body (as in a collision). The high-density passenger seating doesn't have this, and would almost certainly produce head and neck injuries in a real emergency due to everyone's heads smashing into seat backs.
For instance, the A380 evacuation test had 873 people get out in 90 seconds (https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2006/03/a3...), and I don’t think anyone flies a 800+ seat A380 today. I believe the densest A380 is the Emirates Regional configuration with 600 seats.
It's actually not the airlines who are being hypocritical here.
Hey, since planes basically never crash, maybe they shouldn't have any safety equipment at all? I bet you could reduce weight a lot by just marking sitting positions on the bare floor in economy. And you could provide hand-hold straps every so often for turbulent bits (we're acknowledging those, right?).
Strangely, there are relatively few opportunities to shift transport modes for intercontinental travel, other than trivial cases like crossing from Europe to Asia across the Bosporus, which some people do as part of their daily commute. Claiming that you're going to reduce deaths by moving people in aircraft versus cars? Even if aircraft were 100% safe, you couldn't move enough people through the current commercial aviation system to make a noticeable dent.
(Fermi estimate: 800 million passenger tickets in the US (2015), 350 million people make an average of 2 ground vehicle trips per day, that's 700 million * 365 = 255 billion. If airplanes can carry 25% more people (and they can't) by perfect substitution for automobile trips, that would reduce it from 255 to 254 billion trips. 1/255 fewer deaths. That's best case, because the US already makes more plane trips per capita than any other country.)
[1] http://avherald.com/h?search_term=evacuation&opt=0&dosearch=...
One thing I do love about the 787 though is the big windows - tall people get a (edit: lol not 360) very good view around the aircraft if it's not too full.
This would allow consumers to make educated choices on the market
This should be better than a legislated solution. If it was regulated, airlines would focus on gaming the measurement process to provide the biggest number possible, even if at the cost of actual passenger comfort.
It's stupidly uncomfortable for tall and broad people to fly, and while one user here in this thread commented about that: 'I would pay for a larger seat,' I'm making a guess they then downvoted the comment, 'make bigger passengers pay more.'
My problem is the length of my thighs. I can't really put them straight, they act as natural recline blockers. That's the nasty part - it's not about being comfortable, I have paid for extra leg room. I just demand that the damn planes be large enough to sit without pain. I don't demand comfort.
But tickets should be sold per sit per weight. And that should include the passenger and all the luggage. So a 50Kg person travelling with 5Kg of luggage shouldn't pay the same as a 150Kg person travelling with 40Kg of luggage. One should pay for 1 seat/55Kg, the other for 1-2 seats/190Kg.
Airlines only care about the number of sits and total weight so the pricing should be done accordingly. And before anyone screams discrimination, I physically can't fit in most airplane seats (or can, but in a contortionist style not fit for more than a few minutes of usage). I have to pay for upgrades or extra leg room at every flight. I'm sure nobody thinks discrimination in my case.
It's the same with leaning back the sit where it takes space from a seat you paid and it turns a usable seat into an unusable one. Which is why many times I prefer to fly low cost and pay for extra leg room then to go for "premium" airlines and have to be squashed in my seat because I risk being greeted by airport security after landing if I make a fuss.
If you're tall and skinny you really draw the short straw of air travel. You still get to pay full price but without actually fitting in most places in the plane. Nobody feels any moral obligation to care and no chances of losing height in the gym.
A 777-300ER is 170,000kg empty. Divide that equally by 350 passengers and you get 485kg per passenger. We'll compare a 75 vs 100kg passenger which brings the totals to 560 and 585kg. ie a 33% passenger weight increase only makes a 4% total weight change. Note that these are best case numbers and using real world ones is a heavier weight to allocate, and even more trivial weight change per passenger.
This puts in context what kind of deal a 150Kg person gets compared to a 50Kg person. They pay the same price, one gets to carry 100Kg of extra weight. And again, this is a treatment that is only extended to overweight people. A very tall person or an invalid get squat in terms of "good deals". It's only discrimination when we're talking about extra kilograms.
Weight on an airplane is always a major consideration. But even if it weren't, fairness doesn't always have to come attached to profit.
[0] https://www.skyscanner.net/news/tips/check-in-luggage-size-a...
That means oversize or special handling due to size or weight.
Also most air freight goes in the belly of passenger planes - more than goes in dedicated freighter aircraft. Your luggage is competing with that space. In addition it costs more money to handle luggage vs not handling it all.
Almost everything carried by planes - freight or fuel - gets charged by size and weight. The only thing that gets charged exclusively per seat is the passenger. For every passenger that weight 50Kg a plane can carry 100Kg of additional cargo compared to a 150Kg passenger. An increase in average passenger weight of 20Kg for a plane carrying 500 passengers means 10.000Kg less anything else it can carry or more fuel burnt. Both of these cost a lot of money.
Yet airlines are willing to carry the extra 100Kg for free probably because of the outcry coming from the millions of overweight people around the world screaming "discrimination!". Still they are not willing to give 1" of extra leg room for free or larger toilets although there's nothing one can do about it if they fall into these categories.
I think my point stands. The actual algorithm used to calculate is not important for the discussion as much as the concept: it's a fair way to charge for such a service that has hard limits for size and weight.
350k kg max take off weight -170k Kg empty weight -145k kg max fuel = 35k kg usable weight @ max fuel
35k kg / 350 pax = 100kg/pax which means passenger weight is far from trivial
My point was being overweight is free, being "overheight" or an invalid will cost you every time. I have to pay a lot more to get the same level of (dis)comfort that everyone else gets for free.
It's the kind of discrimination that people just let slide but it's discrimination nonetheless.
The restrooms are not a plane manufacturer thing. The changes happening are Airbus figuring out how to make them smaller. They have to be big enough for a disabled person, but Airbus figured out that you could have two smaller ones next to each that open together to meet the requirements. Galleys and restrooms don't make revenue, so everyone is figuring out how to make them smaller and free up room for more seats. You found one.
If the person behind me puts the provided a water bottle in the seat pocket in front of them, as they do almost every flight, it pokes, pushes, and rubs my back enough that I wake up.
The solution is easy, don't fly in economy.
Bloody poor people. They should be happy we let them our airplanes at all.
In the 1970s a transatlantic return was about $3000 in today's money. You can get a business class bed for that now. If you could afford to travel in economy in 1970, you can do it in business today, and business today is far above first class in those days.
If you work for a company that insists on flying you in economy and you don't like it, it's time to move job.
For short haul and domestic flights. For trans-atlantic flights it's often 3-5 times as expensive.
If this were any other industry, doing things that obviously cause harm to 5% of customers would be considered unlawful discrimination or assault.
Afaik height isn't a protected class. Amusement parks have been "discriminating" against very short and very tall people forever.
(I will admit that I peak at "mild" empathy for this problem. But even mild empathy gets me to the response above.)
The only relief for tight airline seats is a few drinks to dull the misery.
The worst part for me is my shins are long enough my knees & thighs are elevated off the seat, causing the blood to pool. I have wondered if economy plus allows enough leg extension to alleviate that problem.
(I have similar height and shoulder issues.) It may not seem like it at the back (economy class) but different aircraft are different, and sometimes airlines also lay them out differently from each other. For example look at the Boeing 777 initially released in 1995. At the time economy was laid out 3-3-3. Nowadays most airlines use 3-4-3. That is the difference between a 19 inch wide seat on Singapore Airlines, and a 17 inch wide seat on Emirates.
The aircraft to watch out for the most is the Boeing 787. With one minor exception, they all have one more seat in each economy class row than Boeing originally intended. In general the comment from those of above average height having been on one, is that they will never set foot in a 787 again! The Airbus A350 should be mostly alright on most carriers, but you will need to double check.
A weak rule of thumb is to favour Airbus over Boeing, as their cabin widths and historical choices have tended to result in wider seats in Airbus aircraft. In the US there are efforts to get regulation of seat sizing (under the guise of "safety"), and airlines are trying various things. But someone in the US who is ~1.9m is in the 95th height percentile. It is hard for airlines to cater for that last 5% without a negative economic impact.