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Airlines eye crueler ways of making passengers miserable

latimes.com

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Re: Airlines eye crueler ways of making passengers miserable

#3
For short flights, I do not mind the development of "standing seats." Airline margins will remain razor thin and the savings will be passed to the subset of customers who choose to be more cramped. There WILL continue to be "premium economy" or similar for those who choose it, that is undoubtable.

If the price sensitivity tradeoff of customers ultimately dictates that these standing seats do not gain adoption, I would not be surprised.

History has shown that customers want cheap flights more than they want comfort, but complaining all the while.

Re: Airlines eye crueler ways of making passengers miserable

#5
Rubbish. This type of "news" is cheap brand name advertising by low cost airlines. The 5-pound toilet from European Ryanair was a similar campaign. Though news coverage may appear negative, it is aligned with the impression of the brand as "low cost" and therefore strengthens the brand.

Re: Airlines eye crueler ways of making passengers miserable

#6
This concept has been doing the rounds for a long time. I can't believe that any airline would be seriously considering it. Ryanair will occasionally drop a hint that they're looking into it when they're desperate for some free publicity, but that's about it.

Re: Airlines eye crueler ways of making passengers miserable

#8
The bicycle like standing seat does look awful.

Reclining, though, is a silly feature on coach airline seats. At best, you temporarily get more room at the expense of the person behind you. Until the person in front of you reclines. Reclining seats when the seat pitch is so tight is just dumb.

Oh, and if you get the paywall: http://archive.is/vqTNf

Re: Airlines eye crueler ways of making passengers miserable

#9
That’ll be fun when you spend 3 hours on the tarmac before your “short haul” flight due to airport congestion or weather conditions.

Edited to add: what about people with disabilities? Can elderly people no longer fly? Or even if they have a few sitting seats to comply with disability regulations, what happens if you sprain your ankle at some point between booking your flight and boarding?

Re: Airlines eye crueler ways of making passengers miserable

#10

For short flights, I do not mind the development of "standing seats." Airline margins will remain razor thin and the savings will be passed to the subset of customers who choose to be more cramped. There WILL continue to be "premium economy" or similar for those who choose it, that is undoubtable. If the price sensitivity tradeoff of customers ultimately dictates that these standing seats do not gain adoption, I woul…

I don't believe that "customers want cheap flights more than they want comfort".

Really customers have about as much choice in the comfort of a flight as they do in the cost of health care services.

For years it has been "pay 4 times as much as economy or suffer", in the last ten years they've introduced "basic economy" which at least is realistic.

I might rather fly in a widebody on a domestic flight but I don't get the choice. One reason you hate to fly is that you hate to fly in a 737 (or A320) and you never get to fly in anything else so you just don't know it could be better (at a lower cost per seat mile!) in an A220 or E195.

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