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What's the point? If people were willing to pay more, airlines would make seats bigger. But people want cheap flights, so they get small seats.
by jeffdavis 9y ago
What's the point? If people were willing to pay more, airlines would make seats bigger. But people want cheap flights, so they get small seats.
- phreeza 9y agoThe question in the article is: is it a safety issue?
- jeffdavis 9y agoDoes the article answer it, or just spend the entire time on the more poulist point that airline seats are uncomfortable because airlines are greedy?
- GordonS 9y agoThe point is that it's a safety issue. Regulation seems like a good way to deal with this, although I expect there will be heavy pushback from the aviation industry.
- jeffdavis 9y agoNo, they are reconsidering the relevence/quality of studies done that show it's not a safety issue. That doesn't mean that it is a safety issue.
- jessriedel 9y agoWith 3 million flights a year in the US, there's no way the cost is possibly justified by any reasonable cost-benefit analysis. > Nobody died in a crash of a United States-certificated scheduled airline operating anywhere in the world in 2016...it is the seventh straight year that nobody died in a crash on a United States-certificated scheduled airline operating anywhere in the world. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielreed/2016/12/28/in-the-last-7-years-you-were-more-likely-to-be-run-over-by-a-car-than-to-die-in-an-airline-crash/#4c5d0ec4428a https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielreed/2016/12/28/in-the-la...
- GordonS 9y agoHow often do planes actually crash? Is it often enough to get statisically significant data about survival rates in the event of an evacuation? Also, evacuation after a crash is not the only safety issue - there is deep vein thrombosis, for example.
- jessriedel 9y agoThere isn't nearly enough real-crash data for something as specific as seat widths, but the FAA gets lots of info about this stuff by simulating evacuation procedures with real people. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2006/03/how_did_airbus_ace_its_airplane_evacuation_test.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
- obsurveyor 9y agoAll the more reason to do research into making sure there isn't a safety issue here. Stats like this just make people and companies complacent until the next tragedy strikes.
- jessriedel 9y agoResearch isn't free. It's very possible an order of magnitude estimate would show that the risks of seat narrowing couldn't possibly outweigh the benefits.
- amelius 9y agoOne problem here is that average size people are the majority.
- tacostakohashi 9y agoI suspect average size people are quite rare, actually - definitely not a majority.
- amelius 9y agoIn the PDF sense they are.
- Idontagree 9y agoIt also makes it hard for people like me who are far above the average height to even fit in a seat. If I'm forced to travel for work, I have to either be very uncomfortable or pay out of my pocket because the company doesn't want to pay for first class. My knees dig into that little metal rod the seat back pouches have or they go into the armrest in front of me, it's absurd how small cabins are now.
- jeffdavis 9y agoSo why should we make all seats bigger and all flights more expensive?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Retra 9y agoMaybe people want cheap flights because they can reliably anticipate having a miserable experience.
- kgwgk 9y agoDo they pay more for a bigger seat on their next flight?