7 ms·
Airlines will never adopt these seats en masse until people show a willingness to pay more for them. That isnt how airlines work - they are cargo companies, no
by goatherders 7y ago
Airlines will never adopt these seats en masse until people show a willingness to pay more for them. That isnt how airlines work - they are cargo companies, not customer service companies, and adding millions of dollars in expense so the cheapest customers feel better doesnt fit the model. People in the middle seat fly less often, are more price conscious, and generally dont matter to airlines because there is no loyalty by those customers.
(250k flying miles a year here)
- mikro2nd 7y agoGenuine question here: Do you, or would you, buy CO2 offsets to do something about the horrendous carbon footprint of your 250k miles/year?
- goatherders 7y agoNot sure why you got down-voted, it's a fair question. My answer is that it's not something I've considered. I do a number of things that are "good" for the environment (recycling, composting, don't own a car, etc.) but I haven't ever even explored CO2 offsets. Just never occurred to me.
- mikro2nd 7y agoIn fairness I think it's a fairly new thing for individuals (as opposed to large companies) to even be able to buy offsets, but I'm betting it will become a much larger trend quite quickly, perhaps even required in some jurisdictions. It's not a 'perfect' solution, but at least a step toward doing /something/ rather than shrugging off CO2 emissions as a merely inevitable consequence of air-travel.
- jobigoud 7y agoCan individuals actually buy CO2 offsets?
- mikro2nd 7y agoYep. It's a thing, now. https://www.endscarbonoffsets.com/directory/ https://www.endscarbonoffsets.com/directory/ for a starting point.
- magduf 7y ago>Airlines will never adopt these seats en masse until people show a willingness to pay more for them. Why would people need to pay more for them? I see nothing here indicating these seats would actually cost the airline more. They don't actually take up any more space (they would take up a few extra inches, total, for the whole length of the plane, because of the offset, but that's not significant). These aren't some kind of fancy seats that cost a lot more to manufacture.
- goatherders 7y agoOf course they cost the airlines more. There are seats currently in the planes that do the trick just fine. Ripping them out and replacing them is indeed costly. If the goal is to get these seats on NEW airplanes, well okay. But the refresh of a fleet takes a LONG time.
- magduf 7y agoThey buy new planes all the time though; Airbus is selling its planes as fast as it can build them. And airlines are constantly trying to get newer planes because they're more fuel-efficient, and the capital cost of the plane itself isn't that big a deal compared to how much money they'll spend on fuel while it's in service.
- magduf 7y agoAlso, airplane interiors probably get refreshed every so often anyway. Those seats are fabric, and with so many people sitting in them all the time wear out over time.