Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

airbus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 153 posts

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#131

Post by simondotau »

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #60
baaron wrote: post #4

Main points: - "seats measure up to 18-inches wide in economy, the same standard configuration found on Airbus widebody aircraft" - "To minimise cabin pressure effects on the body, the cabin maintains a 6,000-feet average altitude pressure, roughly equivalent to that of a mountain ski town. This is the same cabin pressure as the modern A350 widebody, and it helps to reduce physical fatigue, headaches and jet lag." -…

Will the speakers sound like a dollar store model or are we going to finally understand what the pilots are saying?

The issue in that case will be the headset microphone and an unsophisticated audio chain with clipping.

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#132

Post by CrimsonRain »

kelnos wrote: post #115
gregdaniels421 wrote: post #19

The first class seats look like a nightmare if you have kids.

Whenever I see kids traveling in first class, it grosses me out a little. When I was a kid, we didn't have the money to fly at all; it was just road trips for us, when we could manage it. I really think parents putting their kids in first class does them a disservice. And on top of that, if they're at all disruptive, that's incredibly rude to other first class passengers who have paid quite a bit of money for a bette…

Other people spending their money to buy tickets for their children grosses you out? What sort of jealous person are you?

Just because you didn't have money to fly, now you don't want other kids to have that? Lol wat?

jfyi, I didn't have any money to fly either. Now flying business with kids. Hope to see you there someday :)

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#133

Post by spit2wind »

krunck wrote: post #5

How about seats that are adjustable to fit small people. I'm sick of sitting in seats with concave lumbar regions. It tears up my back. I know, I know, the seats need to accommodate large, more spherical people. Cant there be an adjustable lumbar support though?

Fun fact: Airbus doesn't choose the seats, the airline does. Airbus only installs them.

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#134

Post by roryirvine »

camgunz wrote: post #127
billforsternz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Not the person you're asking, but...) I don't want to adversely affect the person behind me, but I also accept the right of the person in front of me to recline if they want to. It's not easy being me.

I honestly thought like, the protocol was seat up for take off/food/landing, reclining otherwise.

Yeah, I don't understand this - pretty much every long haul flight I've ever been on has been like this: meal service finishes, lights dim a bit, everyone reclines, lights go out, people either doze off or watch the IFE.

To be fair, I have actually once seen someone not recline, but they had four or five visits from cabin crew before the lights went off making sure they were okay, or if they wanted to be moved, or if there was a fault with their seat. Like, even the crew thought it was an unusual occurrence.

Yet every thread that touches on this on HN, there are people saying "I never recline, what about the person behind me?". And then they complain about being uncomfortable!

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#135

Post by wat10000 »

interloxia wrote: post #108
wat10000 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't, because competition erases those differences. It's a very competitive market. If people were willing to pay a little extra for a few more inches of seat pitch in economy, you'd have an airline that offered a few more inches of seat pitch in economy with slightly higher fares.

They do? It's a common upsell for 50-100ish per flight leg.

Elsewhere people are saying it’s not a realistic alternative because it’s too expensive. I think people just want a better product without paying any more money. I hate cramped economy seats too, and I fly in them anyway, but I acknowledge that I’m deliberately choosing money over comfort and it’s my own doing.

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#137

Post by throwaway2037 »

baaron wrote: post #4

Main points: - "seats measure up to 18-inches wide in economy, the same standard configuration found on Airbus widebody aircraft" - "To minimise cabin pressure effects on the body, the cabin maintains a 6,000-feet average altitude pressure, roughly equivalent to that of a mountain ski town. This is the same cabin pressure as the modern A350 widebody, and it helps to reduce physical fatigue, headaches and jet lag." -…

I wasn't aware of this model before the article. I had a look at the stats on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A321neo#Specifications

Amazingly, it has a "typical range" of 8,700 km. That is crazy for a single aisle aircraft. That potentially means flights of up to 10 hours at cruise speed around 833 km/h. I think most people would feel incredibly cramped in a single aisle aircraft for that long.

I also found a list of the longest scheduled commercial flights with this aircraft: https://simpleflying.com/over-8-hours-30-minutes-the-worlds-...

The longest is Madrid (Spain) to Washington, D.C. (USA) at 9h 40m. Yikes.

The pairings look similar to 787/A350 (point to point for non-hub cities), only the city pairs are even smaller.

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#138

Post by throwaway2037 »

rconti wrote: post #21

My dislike for single aisle aircraft isn't about cabin pressure or the "impression of a wider open space". It's about the fact that it is ACTUALLY cramped, and the _one_ aisle will be blocked for most of the flight. In a typical single aisle airplane, sitting in coach, you're expected to use the restroom "in your cabin" which is at the rear. If you're sitting anywhere _except_ the rear, your access to the restroom wi…

    > I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+.
Can you give a city pair where economy->business upgrade costs 5x? The industry standard is about 4x for direct flights and slights less for flights with a single stopover, e.g., fly Hongkong to London with a Middle East carrier.

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#139

Post by throwaway2037 »

darknavi wrote: post #122
tuna74 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+. " If you look at pictures it seems like the lie-flat seats take up roughly 6x the space of what the economy seats take up.

New Zealand allows you to book three seats in a row and covert it to a bed which seems like a nice alternative.

I checked the prices. To be clear, I assume that we are talking about the "Economy Skycouch" programme. [1] Its better than just three economy sets because they lay down a small mattress that fills the whole seat area. It looks much more comfortable that trying to sleep across three regular economy seats! It looks like the prices are about 50-100% higher. That looks pretty reasonable to me, considering it is cheaper than buying the three economy seats. I wonder what the business analysis looked like for this offering. I guess they have some long-haul flights with low load factor, so they are looking to sell the empty seats and harvest some revenue.

[1] https://www.airnewzealand.co.jp/economy-skycouch

Re: Latest Airbus single aisle aircraft innovations

#140

Post by throwaway2037 »

cwmma wrote: post #32

Is there a term for a product which is really only really for a minority of it's users? Air travel seems like this as most airlines and manufacturers seem to bend over backwards for their wealthy and high margin passengers and basically treat economy class as "fine I guess we'll throw the rest of you in the back" Mobile games seem the apotheosis of this as a lot of games are really about finding whales and any enjoym…

Casinos work in a similar manner. Whale customers get way more attention that other customers.
Post reply on HN