On one hand we need to cramp as many people as possible to make it cost effective, on the hand passengers are basically torturing themselves. Especially if you are 6 foot plus tall.
The way to be comfortable on a long flight is to pay for it.
You can find premium economy seats to Japan for $1,500 and business class for $2,500. It wasn’t that long ago when those sort of prices were the economy ticket.
I see a good amount of $400 economy fares that’ll stick you on a plane for upwards of 10 hours. It’s an incredible value. A lot of people making that trip can just upgrade to either an extra legroom seat or premium economy and they’ll still be spending less than they did not even 10 years ago.
https://www.executivetraveller.com/here-s-where-qantas-pilot...
Critical parts of the flight (such as take off and landing) will have the two most senior pilots in command, but less demanding parts in cruise, one of the second officers will be backing up one of the senior crew while the other 2 crew members have mandated rest.
Because these are 'hot bunks', you only need 2 available for the flight crew at any time. I assume the cabin crew have a similar rotation system.
This only happens when departure and arrival are both in the Northern Hemisphere, if that's the case, great circle routes appear as curved towards the North when plotted on a 2D map.
But here we are going from Northern to Southern hemisphere, so the great circle route will appear S-shaped, and the middle section will not be very far away from a straight line drawn on a 2D map.
This is the great circle route SFO-SYD, Honolulu is pretty close as you can see http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=sfo-syd
I just don't see how you could reasonably stop in Russia or China while flying from the US to Sydney.
But yeah, I don't think there exists a NA<->AU route with practical stops in China or Russia https://i.succ.in/6myR8ZFQ.png
The layback seats made me enjoy it far more than even a 5 hour flight.
I regularly travel both business class and premium economy, and especially on an overnight flight I feel fresh after business and sore after premium economy.
I hope that airlines like Qantas etc. realise that on these extra long flights, people like myself are more than willing to pay a little extra for small comforts like plenty of leg room or space to get up and walk/stretch at regular intervals.
Then again, I just came back from Europe in a Scoot 787. Scoot are the 'budget' arm of Singapore Airlines, but I guess with the wealth of Singapore, their budget carrier is the equivalent of most other full service carriers.
I flew once on a business class in a 10+ hour flight. I slept so well. The food was great. It was so relaxing. I bet first class would have been even better. I wouldn't mind flying for 20 hours in a business class.
I haven't downvoted, but I'm having problems with the last sentence
> we need an honest study, and subsequent class lawsuit.
Honest stud exist for many years [0] and it's common knowledge in every tourist guide [1].
Class lawsuit is a very American thing, let's sue everyone regardless of proof or if the condition can be avoided by the persons themselves.
Even the link between flight and DVT is not 100% clear [2], although there seems to be a good mechanism explaining it:
> not all experts agree that air travel is a direct cause of thrombosis due to a lack of large-scale population studies. Such studies are difficult to evaluate, in that the extended period between flight time and presentation of DVT or PE symptoms induces variability.
The conclusion of this [3] research is somewhat disturbing:
> Moreover, given the low incidence of DVT in the general population we may never know if air travel increases the risk of DVT because studies with the required sample size to detect a significantly increased risk are unlikely to be sponsored.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1989755/ [1] https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dvt/travel.html [2] https://www.stoptheclot.org/learn_more/air_travel_and_thromb... [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC434500/
Anyway, considering the stringency of aviation regulations designed to mitigate already very small risks, I think it would be consistent to force passengers to get up and have a walk once in a while (if this would indeed mitigate the risk of DVT). Obviously airlines would never take this step, but they could at least recommend it, or the FAA could enforce it.
Also, the 787 doesn't use bleed air from a compression stage to pressurize (risking the intake of various fluids). It just pressurizes fresh high-altitude air electrically.
Edit: Also explains why the cabin fills with jeta fumes when they start the engines while passengers are on board.
[They == people who once worked in aerospace]
What would also help with comfort on flights is lumbar support. I don't really understand why airline seats have virtually no lumbar support, but I guess it gives them room to squeeze in some more chairs if they do that. IDK But sometimes it drives me nuts being on a long flight and getting a sore lower back. Sure, I can squeeze a pillow back there if I've got one, but still.
By the way, I discovered that you can get free wifi on a lot of these flights if you use the T-mobile free hour and, once the hour is up, spoof your MAC address and rotate to another T-mobile number. :)
I think the new A350-900 made the flight better as well, the cabin lighting is much better, and the air quality also feels better.
It's still a lot of money, but I personally think it's well spend.
On my last trip to the US, I did the Qantas 'upgrade roulette' thing (they send an email to passengers a couple of days before the flight asking them to bid points and/or dollars to upgrade their seats). I bid the minimum points of 10,000 and the minimum dollar value of I think around $400. The system told me I had a 1% chance of getting the upgrade so I forgot about it. On the morning of the flight, I got an email from them saying I had been upgraded to Business class - worth normally $4000!
Having a lie-flat business class seat for the 14 hour SYD-LAX leg on the A380 was so good, I am considering only doing transatlantic flights in Premium or Business from now on.
I agree with you on the full service airlines versus a budget one, to me, travel has always been a privilege and something I save up for. So I've never considered traveling on a budget to save costs.
But as for entire rows, I also was once lucky enough to be on a flight (long trip from Europe to Tokyo) where everyone in our cabin at least got an entire rope for themselves. Lying down horizontally across seats was indeed an enormous difference, and I managed to sleep for almost the entire flight as well.
I also found the armrest table and entertainment screen a little better. I liked that I could tilt the screen away from me or turn it for better privacy from my neighbour. I also liked that the pop out table could be 'halved' if I just wanted a drink on it or to rest my phone or ipad on it while charging. I still had room beside it to have a pillow or magazine in my lap.
Nevertheless, I still felt "exposed", and there were indeed people walking in front of me a lot. So given that I don't need the leg room, it's only fair that someone who prefers having it should get that row...
But, I don't know, I feel like handling long flights is a skill you can develop (as is adjusting to jet lag quickly). I used to fly economy NY to Europe on a weekly basis for work and after doing that a bunch I just don't really get fazed by long flights. I did a Chicago to HK leg in economy without the benefit of getting a whole row and didn't really mind the 12 hours at all.
Same here, I wonder if anyone could explain this. I used to think it is cool and fun. Now I hated it so much it is almost depressing. The experience is pretty much the same, but for reason I cant understand flying is very tiring, even though I as just sitting on the flight most of the time.
To abstract away from the above, I find that the mindset going into the flight determines the experience.
It's also more humid. Since the body isn't aluminum, they dont have to worry about it degrading so much from humid air.
Maybe inside surface temperature on carbon fibre is higher (better insulation), allowing for higher dew point [1], thus higher humidity levels.
I then joined a new company that flies us first class when it’s over 8 hours. It was the first time I actually felt the flight was too short. I can’t believe what a difference in experiences. I arrived completely refreshed.
I think you mean less often, as in more fresh air? Recirculation increases CO2 concentration, which causes fatigue.
I do not know whether or not such information is accurate, but there is concern about it on the internet.
Humidity, however, was 10%, and the cabin pressure would also have been lower than at ground level.
I wonder if I have some pressure sensitivity that affects me on these long haul flights, as I haven’t felt it on domestic flights or flights from SFO to Heathrow (or back). In addition, I know I am susceptible to altitude sickness.
Because of a mechanical issue we flew on a 787 out and a 767 back and the difference was night and day.
On the trip over, I scored a seat near the galley exit. Meaning no seats in front of me where the overwing exit door was. I could stretch my legs right out, and every hour or so, I could just unbuckle my seatbelt and stand up and do a series of stretches and sit back down again without bothering any other passengers or crew.
On the way back, the plane was nearly empty, so United allocated a full row of 3 seats to everyone in economy. Being able to lie flat was a massive bonus and I slept most of the 17 hours lying down and didn't feel it.
The 787 itself is a big factor in my comfort. The strength of the carbon fibre fuselage means that the cabin altitude is set to 5000 feet instead of the normal 8000 feet in other aircraft, and the air is recirculated more often I believe, which leads to less fatigue and high altitude problems.
The aircraft also cruises higher than most other earlier era jets, so we were usually well above most weather patterns for a very smooth ride. The new cabin lighting also helped to set the mood for sleep and awake cycles while on board. Kudos to Boeing engineers for the design work that went into this.