15 ms·

Having just done a close to 20 hour flight (sort of - 6 hours CPT to ADD, just enough time to go to another plane, 14 hours ADD to IAD via a technical stop in D

• kleiba 8y ago
  Been there, done that (6'2, Australia <-> Europe, multiple times). I couldn't agree more. The fact that there is no way to fully stretch my legs while seated is driving me nuts on such long flights. I get that they have to cramp in as many seats into a plane as they can in order to get the prices down to a point where normal people are willing to pay for a ticket. But it's really such a pain in the butt. Would I pay double the price for a ticket to get a bed? Probably not: long distance flights are already expensive. And knowing how everything on planes is smaller than in real-life, I'm sure whatever they'd sell me as "a bed" would not really be accommodating either. As a consequence, I now just avoid these long distance trips. A pity for one who loves to travel but on the upside, it's better for the environment anyway.
  • fyfy18 8y ago
    If you have a long trip with a connection, most airlines will charge you the same whether you get the earliest connection or get one a few days later. If you aren’t in a rush this is a good way to break it up, and travel to somewhere different. Yes it costs more booking a hotel for a couple of nights, but it’s still probably going to be cheaper than upgrading to business class. You usually have to book it directly through their website (look for “multi city”) rather than through an agent.
    • _nalply 8y ago
      When flying Auckland-Zurich we decided to delay the stop over in Dubai by 24h and used the time to sleep in a hotel. We went to bed at 10am and got up the next day at 7am. We had pizza delivered for a short midnight lunch in bed. It was perfect.
  • baddox 8y ago
    And surely a bed would be way more than double the price of an economy ticket, considering that business class is already often 5 times more expensive for long international flights.
    • mikepurvis 8y ago
      Would depend a lot on the bed. If it was a narrow, double- or triple-stacked bunk, then it might not take up much more floor space than the equivalent number of economy seats. What you're paying for in business class is the privilege of having a flat bed or a big comfy chair, on demand.
  • tluyben2 8y ago
    If you have the time, just add stops. With Skyscanner/Google flights, I am usually able to cut a lot off the price while seeing some nice places on my way to and from Aus to EU. It takes some puzzling, but flying from Aus is usually weirdly expensive and adding stops cuts the price (last time it more than halved it to stop on Bali for 2 days; what a punishment!). Philipines or Vietnam usually cut prices a lot too. Bangkok is another one but less these days. And it cuts up the journey; helps with physical issues when you are tall (and/or broad/large) as well as with the jetlag.
    • paranoidrobot 8y ago
      I've tried a few times to find routes to Europe, ex-Sydney where it's more than marginally cheaper. I've never really had much luck.
      • tluyben2 8y ago
        Strange. There was a known way from London from/to Sydney via Philipines that was much cheaper a year ago. And I had luck with Denpasar and Colombo many times including this year.
  • grecy 8y ago
    > Been there, done that (6'2, Australia <-> Europe, multiple times). I couldn't agree more. The fact that there is no way to fully stretch my legs while seated is driving me nuts on such long flights. Same boats for me exactly. My solution is just to get up and hang out in the aisle, or near the emergency exits whenever I feel like it. Sometimes I read standing up, I stretch, I even sit on the floor with my legs straight. I'm polite to the staff and other passengers, and I have never once had anyone tell me to stop what I'm doing. It's great in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep. An hour of stretching makes a BIG difference on those 14 hour back-to-back flights.
  • ubernostrum 8y ago
    And knowing how everything on planes is smaller than in real-life, I'm sure whatever they'd sell me as "a bed" would not really be accommodating either. I'm over 6' tall. I've flown multiple different lie-flat products on long-haul flights (and will try out another one next month), and I've never been on one that was too small. I suspect because that type of premium-cabin seating is built with assumptions about the demographics of the customers (in other words, they assume the typical passenger in these seats will be male, and aim to support a range of typical male sizes).
• aplummer 8y ago
  6’7” (202cm) and about to get on the 15h LA to Melbourne today, no exit row possible despite many attempts - pity me.
  • thewizardofaus 8y ago
    As a fellow tall person myself, I will pray for you lol.
  • tluyben2 8y ago
    I am close to 2m and also broad (my shoulders stick out quite a bit) and I could not do that. Usually in this case the person in front and/or beside me will start complaining to the staff and they will relocate me. I have been put in premium and swapped with people in exit seats because I physically do not sit and every movement bothers people around me.
    • majos 8y ago
      Not to be rude, but you're saying you're 2m/6.5 feet wide?
      • tluyben2 8y ago
        No :) I am almost 2m tall and not scrawny. In a lot of seats that is kind of torture. It was fine when I was 25, but at close to 45 it is just painful longhaul, but at least there I can sit. I cannot physically sit in some chairs in short EU flights without bothering everyone around me. Which is why they usually just put me somewhere else. Indeed if I was 2 by 2 I would say I should book 2 chairs, but inside EU, especially northern EU, a lot of people are tall and in NL (where I am from) often taller than me and yet the seats are smaller than a lot of asian airline seats where I am the tallest. If you have to fly for vacation or very sporadically then it does not matter too much, but if you fly a lot and for work, in which case you want to feel rested, it is somewhat of a pain to go through the same thing every time. Then ofcourse, you can say 'pay more'; the unfortunate thing is that EU internal flight business class is just economy with slightly more legroom and a free middle seat for a looooot of money. While, again in Asia, business class on short flights, means large chairs (2-2 arrangements with comfy chairs vs 3-3 cheap feeling plastic mini chairs in the same A320) for less money for the same distance.
• gthtjtkt 8y ago
  I'm roughly the size you described and my 14-ish hour flight to China was the closest thing to torture I've ever experienced. The last few hours were pure physical and mental agony. Too tired to do anything productive, too uncomfortable to sleep, and sick of every form of in-flight entertainment. Maybe frequent flyers get used to it or know how to prepare better for long fights, but I'll be making sure I have a layover from now on.
  • Kagerjay 8y ago
    Been to China many times on a 14 hour flight over the years. The secret is the following: - Do lunges & pushups every few hours to prevent butt from getting sore - Workout/Run the day before or morning. Don't oversleep, lean on having less sleep before the flight (6-7 hours) - Don't bother doing any work. Find that book you've wanted to read for some time, read that. - Pick an aisle or window seat, middle seat sucks When you get to your destination, do the following: - Take a 1 hour nap in the middle of the day. This resets jetlag so you can sleep on a normal schedule
    • rosege 8y ago
      where do you do your pushups?
      • Kagerjay 8y ago
        near the toilet in the back, where flight attendants grab food entrees. Almost every airplane has a larger footspace around this area.
    • fphhotchips 8y ago
      Additionally, noise cancelling headphones are amazing for helping sleep. If a chemical method is your thing, I've heard good things about motion sickness medication, but I've never used it.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • 8y ago
• lambda 8y ago
  Air New Zealand already offers the Skycouch, in which an additional portion of the seat folds up to make them wider and you can lay across all three seats: https://www.airnewzealand.com/economy-skycouch https://www.airnewzealand.com/economy-skycouch I've flown on it once. It's not as nice as a real bed, you can't fully stretch out without sticking your legs into the aisle, but it's a heck of a lot nicer than trying to recline in a normal economy seat. I don't know exactly how much it cost, since someone else had bought the tickets for me, and may have used frequent flyer benefits to offset the costs. I think you basically pay the cost of each extra seat, so it's not cheap, but cheaper than upgrading all the way to business class to get seats that recline all the way to flat. If you have someone you're comfortable sharing with, then you only pay for one extra seat for the two of you.
  • wenc 8y ago
    That is a brilliant idea especially for couples with children on long hauls. Not many people will pay for business on their own dime (business class generally not worth the multiplier -- it's a captive market for consultants and the wealthy), but some might consider buying an extra seat an extra seat if the price is right.
    • JimboOmega 8y ago
      I can't sleep on airplanes, primarily because I can't sleep while sitting up. Even totally exhausted, I'll fall asleep for 20 minutes at most, before something becomes painful and wakes me up. It's completely miserable on a transpacific because I arrive so very exhausted. Still, business is WILDLY more expensive. There's no intermediate step to paying several times more. Is actually sleeping worth a few hundred dollars to me? Yes. A few thousand? No.
      • selectodude 8y ago
        Premium Economy is a thing now and I’ve become a die hard. Is business worth $5000 more? No. But I’ll spend $400 more for a person sized seat and better food.
• rogerbinns 8y ago
  > I've got to say just how absolutely miserable it is to fly for a long period of time on a full flight. (I have similar height and shoulder issues.) It may not seem like it at the back (economy class) but different aircraft are different, and sometimes airlines also lay them out differently from each other. For example look at the Boeing 777 initially released in 1995. At the time economy was laid out 3-3-3. Nowadays most airlines use 3-4-3. That is the difference between a 19 inch wide seat on Singapore Airlines, and a 17 inch wide seat on Emirates. The aircraft to watch out for the most is the Boeing 787. With one minor exception, they all have one more seat in each economy class row than Boeing originally intended. In general the comment from those of above average height having been on one, is that they will never set foot in a 787 again! The Airbus A350 should be mostly alright on most carriers, but you will need to double check. A weak rule of thumb is to favour Airbus over Boeing, as their cabin widths and historical choices have tended to result in wider seats in Airbus aircraft. In the US there are efforts to get regulation of seat sizing (under the guise of "safety"), and airlines are trying various things. But someone in the US who is ~1.9m is in the 95th height percentile. It is hard for airlines to cater for that last 5% without a negative economic impact.
  • craftyguy 8y ago
    > It is hard for airlines to cater for that last 5% without a negative economic impact. If this were any other industry, doing things that obviously cause harm to 5% of customers would be considered unlawful discrimination or assault.
    • austhrow743 8y ago
      If that was the case they'd just put in height maximums for economy tickets. Afaik height isn't a protected class. Amusement parks have been "discriminating" against very short and very tall people forever.
      • baddox 8y ago
        If you're talking about physical injury, then I don't think it would be legal for any 5% of your customers. Pretty sure injuring people is illegal regardless of protected class status.
• r00fus 8y ago
  I'm hoping the future is more like 5th Element's "stewardess pushing the button to put the passengers to sleep immediately".
  • stephengillie 8y ago
    That tech sounds scary - cause people to fall asleep with the press of a button - image walking up to a bank, pushing the button on your device to make everyone inside fall asleep, then walking away with the bank's cash...among other things. OR - a "freedom fighter" making a political statement while onboard an airplane.
• irishcule 8y ago
  You should avoid any flights with the new 737 MAX then. I flew on it recently and I have never been so uncomfortable on a flight and I am not tall (5'9)
  • akvadrako 8y ago
    Comfort isn't closely related to the airplane model - it's the airlines which pick the seats and layout.
    • JimboOmega 8y ago
      Part of the dreamliner pitch is it's supposed to be better for passengers because of the cabin pressure, and... something else, I forget what. Maybe noise? When it comes to seat width and pitch, though, that's all on the airlines.
      • giobox 8y ago
        The humidity is supposedly also much better, thanks to much more use of composite materials in its construction (corrosion concerns keep humidity much lower on other passenger aircraft). I've certainly heard anecdotally that this was noticeable, but who knows. I've yet to fly on one so can't claim one way or the other. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner
      • karthikb 8y ago
        Humidity - carbon fiber fuselage can support more water in the cabin atmosphere.
• WaylonKenning 8y ago
  Or take a layover. Explore Addis Ababa, take a break, check out Dublin, then reach Washington.
• jsonne 8y ago
  I am 6 foot 6. I sat next to my Friend who is 6 foot 9 on a flight from Chicago to Paris. Only 9 hours, but absolutely miserable.
• kbenson 8y ago
  I was wondering if you could still book ship passage places easily these days (without it being a cruise, which is another possibility for select routes), and came across someone talking about booking rooms for ~$100/day (including food) on cargo ships.[1] Seems like it takes ~7-10 days to do a transatlantic leg of a route, so it would definitely take a while (and it has very limited routes, so some flying or overland travel might also be required for many routes), but it might be an interesting way to take a vacation before or after a business trip. 1: https://matadornetwork.com/notebook/how-to-travel-by-cargo-ship/ https://matadornetwork.com/notebook/how-to-travel-by-cargo-s...
  • notyourwork 8y ago
    As a developer, if I had internet access (at least intermittently) I could work remotely during the transit and be productive. Interesting thought
    • kbenson 8y ago
      For developers in certain areas (SF for example), $100/day might be cheaper than (or on par with) local housing. With a good internet solution, that might be an interesting way to work and travel at the same time.
      • matt_the_bass 8y ago
        I remember hearing once about a company trying to turn an old cruise ship into a floating hotel off the coast of California. The idea was also to keep it in international waters so that visas and taxes were not a thing. I wonder what happened to that idea?
        • chevman 8y ago
          A few years ago at SFDC Dreamforce, a company actually did this - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/step-aboard-the-dreamboat-salesforces-floating-hotel-for-dreamforce-2015-09-14 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/step-aboard-the-dreamboat-...
• paulie_a 8y ago
  While I understand being frugal, why skimp on long range transportation? It will be a miserable experience.
  • Johnny555 8y ago
    Because the price difference between economy and business class can exceed the cost of the rest of the trip - it's not within the realm of affordability for many people, they can either fly economy or not at all.
    • paulie_a 8y ago
      If I am going to be miserable on an extended flight due to cost, I'd just find somewhere else to go.
      • Johnny555 8y ago
        That's not always an easy choice... Like if you have family overseas and you want to go home for a family event or illness.
        • azinman2 8y ago
          Or you really want to go to city X, but the price difference is rent for a month (or more).
          • paulie_a 8y ago
            I've been looking up flights recently and if your rent is less than 700 you are lucky. You can buy a first class ticket, round trip to the other side of the planet
            • Johnny555 8y ago
              Just because you've found one ticket somewhere for $700 doesn't mean that's where I want to go or is a time that I can go. Many of my vacations revolve around family events for extended family in another country, so I have limited flexibility in dates or destination. I'm looking at tickets right now, $735 for economy, $3500 - $6000+ for business, $15,000+ for first class. Fortunately I have a lot of miles, so a 160K mile business class awards ticket is a possibility.
• dmurray 8y ago
  > But I highly doubt we'll ever see a reasonably priced long-haul flight with a gym available to us peasants. It's all relative. Suppose the cheapest flights were twice what they currently are. Let's say $350 transatlantic one way, or $2300 return on your flight from South Africa to the eastern US. Flights would still be affordable to the middle class, which despite your "peasants" wording actually makes up ~100% of cost-conscious flyers. We'd fly less often and complain - as we do now - that flying would be so much better if we had twice the space per person for the same price and spent some of that on gyms, creches and hot bunks. But actually we live in that counterfactual! And it turns out we don't really want those amenities. Our collective expressed preference - and given the lack of variety across airlines, it must be almost unanimous - is to be squeezed tighter and get to fly intercontinental a bit more often.
  • nemo44x 8y ago
    That's the irony of it all. It seems like so many people complain about the comfort of airlines when in aggregate they put airlines that offered better amenities out of business due to slightly higher prices. Before the internet became the standard for booking travel, travel agents were often used to book flights. They could persuade people to spend just a bit more (around $10-$20) to fly on airlines with better food and more space. It worked! As soon as sorting by price became the standard it became a race to the bottom. Airlines are only responding to market demand. The fact is everyone want's a premium experience but when it comes time to pay they only want the absolute cheapest fare. The travel aspect of a trip is now considered a tolerated annoyance instead of part of the overall experience. The same thing is happening with hotels as they eliminate services to offer cheaper rooms with nothing else. Do you value quality of quantity you need to ask yourself. Is it better to have fewer long trips or frequent short trips you need to ask yourself.
    • telchar 8y ago
      It's not that I want a terrible experience, it's that I can easily sort by price and I can't easily determine how comfortable a plane will be. Until a site allows me to sort by a weighted function of price and comfort it's just too much effort to book a flight by anything but price. Taking into account the various combinations of airports, dates, times, locations (I typically fly for leisure), optimizing is already a exponentially more difficult with each option even with a simple cost function, never mind one that I have to go to a separate website to look up for each and every possible flight.
• asn0 8y ago
  This would be a cool place to try short-term "seat-swapping" rentals, a real "AirBnB" (ba-da-ching) as it were: You buy a super-expensive bed-cube on a 20-hour flight, then register your flight and seat and mark a schedule when it's available for seat-swapping. "Guests" can book in 15-minute increments (on-demand if the flight has Internet). During their time, you swap seats and get to know their seat-neighbors. Assuming an hour on each end for take-off/landing, and 8 hours you'd reserve for sleeping, that leaves 10 hours at $20/15-min = $800 recouped.
  • ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
    Except the Business Class seats flying international cost $10k+ in many cases (from what I hear online, I can barely afford to fly cattle class once every 5 years). I don't think someone that spends that much is willing to give up their seat for a majority of the flight for $800?
    • annerajb 8y ago
      He said in 15 minutes increment how is that the majority of a 18h flight? I believe the purpose is to stretch and for the other person to save a bit of money. So you may book it a few times during the 18h flight maybe every 4 hours for 30 minutes and pay for that.
• pcurve 8y ago
  I'm 5'6" and 135lbs and have flown on a lot of 13+ hour flights. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's even legal to make airline coach seats current size, because it barely fits me. After 9 hours, I'm usually ready to stab myself.
• paulcole 8y ago
  Being over 6'2" is very rare. In the US, it's maybe 1 in 30 men.
  • monadgonad 8y ago
    1 in 30 is hardly “very rare”. That means you know well more than 10 people who are that tall, and the average bus is likely to have one.
• DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
  It will never happen. They know what folk will tollerate. Ok, maybe they take a couple seats out and put a treadmill, charge an equivalent cost.
• peteretep 8y ago
  I did a similar 16.5hr + 7hr a little while ago. It was still excruciating in a lie-flat seat on a decent carrier.
• RealityVoid 8y ago
  You should then try a 20 hours long bus trip instead in order to traverse 1/10th of the distance. I honestly do not care how comfortable and/or uncomfortable the plane is as long as it takes me wherever I want to go. I'd rather keep my wads of cash and spend them on stuff that make me happy.
• te_chris 8y ago
  Best I've seen is virgin atlantic. When I flew to vegas from London with them it was $45 USD per flight to get an economy seat with a bit more room. There was about 8 or 9 rows of these slightly roomier seats and it was great. Wish more airlines did this.
• singularity2001 8y ago
  Flying 12 hours Emirates was one of the most pleasant journeys of my life. (broad shoulders too, and no /s)
• kenneth 8y ago
  Business class has gotten pretty cheap these days. I'm in the middle of a trip from LA to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and New York… all in business class with the long-hauls on lie-flat seats. Total cost… $1700. Entirely reasonable, and for me paying a bit extra is a no-brainer.