Japan Airlines lays on extra plane after sumo wrestlers make too heavy to fly • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan Airlines lays on extra plane after sumo wrestlers make too heavy to fly

#41

Post by wryoak » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

acd10j wrote: post #10

mjevans wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their point is that the seats are not sized to 'common people'. At the very least I'd say it's likely a not-small portion of American adults are larger than common airline seats want them to be.

If airlines increase seat width to accommodate overweight, no of seating in aircraft will go down, which will lead to increase in per seat pricing, in effect healthy people will be subsidising overweight.

I was on a flight just yesterday, placed in a middle seat, where the two gentlemen flanking me rolled over the arm rests into my seat space. As an unhealthily slender man I am 100% comfortable subsidizing not having my seat space invaded by people who have a different shape than I. I don’t want to pay extra to personally avoid it, as I could in first class, I want to pay extra to make sure nobody suffers either side of the problem: these men were both profusely apologetic and embarrassed, and I’m sure I was not the only of us three left also physically uncomfortable.

Re: Japan Airlines lays on extra plane after sumo wrestlers make too heavy to fly

#42

Post by emmp » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

Kbelicius wrote: post #40

teknolog wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the one who said a wide person has to buy two seats in a comment above. Then we must define what the dimensions of a seat are to know what we're tealking about.

> Then we must define what the dimensions of a seat are to know what we're tealking about. Why? We are buying a seat, not inches. But since you insist, here: https://seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php How does this information move the conversation forward?

A seat consists of inches. And these vary on every airline. So yes you do need to know the inches to know how many seats to buy under your plan. In principle even an average sized person could be undersized on some theoretical airline with smaller seats -- the dimensions are key.

Re: Japan Airlines lays on extra plane after sumo wrestlers make too heavy to fly

#43

Post by Kbelicius » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

emmp wrote: post #42

Kbelicius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then we must define what the dimensions of a seat are to know what we're tealking about. Why? We are buying a seat, not inches. But since you insist, here: https://seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php How does this information move the conversation forward?

A seat consists of inches. And these vary on every airline. So yes you do need to know the inches to know how many seats to buy under your plan. In principle even an average sized person could be undersized on some theoretical airline with smaller seats -- the dimensions are key.

> A seat consists of inches.

Yes, but you aren't buying inches but a seat on a plane so it is irrelevant. The original poster said that when he buys a seat he bought a whole seat, not 0.7 nor 0.9 of that seat. How does defining that seat in inches invalidates his point?

> So yes you do need to know the inches to know how many seats to buy under your plan. In principle even an average sized person could be undersized on some theoretical airline with smaller seats -- the dimensions are key.

Yes, when you want to fly it is good to know what size a seat you are buying but notice that you saying that in no way moves the conversation forward. And nobody claimed that knowing the size of seat in inches isn't important.

Re: Japan Airlines lays on extra plane after sumo wrestlers make too heavy to fly

#44

Post by Macha » Wed, Oct 18, 2023, 12:16 AM UTC

extraduder_ire wrote: post #33

acd10j wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If airlines increase seat width to accommodate overweight, no of seating in aircraft will go down, which will lead to increase in per seat pricing, in effect healthy people will be subsidising overweight.

It decreases seating less than you might expect. Seating on an aircraft is usually limited by the number of emergency exits rather than actual dimensions.

I could see that being the case for pitch, maybe (though much further reductions than some airlines have done seems likely to cause medical issues for tall people). But width? The only place for that to come from is from the aisles and typical 3-3 or 2-4-2 layouts don't leave very big aisles (and the results would not be navigable for anyone using that extra seat width)