Legroom on a plane

[pushthebutton]

bozzy101 said:

No I agree, it is unacceptable. I was just trying to point out it is the airline cramming all the seats in which really causes the problem. Let's be honest, reclined or not there isn't much room.

Chicken and egg I guess, but airlines cram more seats in because the majority have been shown to vote with their wallets; £5 or less difference in the ticket price is the headline figure on which decisions are made.

It's pretty much self-perpetuating. Airlines will continue to cram more seats in as long as consumers continue to vote with their wallets.

[RYH64E]

blueg33 said:

I fly quite a lot, long haul and short haul. I love flying (except for the legroom and the food), maybe I could be described as being excited especially on low altitude flight paths and find it very difficult to sleep on any form of transport. I certainly don't sleep on flights under about 16 hours.

I also fly quite a lot, long haul and short haul, and the novelty has long since worn off. On long haul flights especially I try to sleep because it breaks up an otherwise incredibly tedious journey, I also try to choose an evening take off to increase the chances of a bit of sleep. Reclining seats help, and if we all recline there's no real net effect.

Being a short arse means that I don't have to go to the added cost of upgrading to business class, cattle class seats are cramped but good value for me compared to the cost of upgrading. If I were taller then maybe I'd have to dig deep and pay for an upgrade, but what I wouldn't do is choose cattle class, despite the known problem with legroom, then complain about other passengers legitimately using the facilities provided by the airline.

If you're too big for cattle class then pay for an upgrade, or expect to be even more uncomfortable than usual, there's no reason to inconvenience other passengers who can fit into the (limited) space provided just because you can't.

[hman]

DJRC said:

carl_w said:

hman said:

Only the budget airlines dont offer food.

Wrong, BA don't do food on short haul either. They used to.

Define food? But yes they do. On the heathrow to Rome flight it's usually a chicken sandwich in some pinch fold over flatbread. These days if possible I pay the 119quid and upgrade to business just to avoid it! It's similar in their heathrow to Munich flights. Lofty offer tesco white sandwich bread sandwiches filled with something on the same routes. As do Swiss from uk to Zurich and or Geneve. I fly and have flown these routes every week for the last 4 yrs.

I flew with BA from CPT to DUR which is all of about an hour - BA gave out food it was rubbish.

I flew from Sydney to Melbourne which is a couple of hours - again same old rubbish food, but food was given out.

[walsh]

Currently on a 737-800, over France. Apart from anything else, free wifi Is cool.

Recaro seats, plenty of space so far, chap in front hasn't reclined,

[citizensm1th]

come on frenchie

[carl_w]

hman said:

DJRC said:

Define food? But yes they do. On the heathrow to Rome flight it's usually a chicken sandwich in some pinch fold over flatbread. These days if possible I pay the 119quid and upgrade to business just to avoid it! It's similar in their heathrow to Munich flights. Lofty offer tesco white sandwich bread sandwiches filled with something on the same routes. As do Swiss from uk to Zurich and or Geneve. I fly and have flown these routes every week for the last 4 yrs.

I flew with BA from CPT to DUR which is all of about an hour - BA gave out food it was rubbish.

I flew from Sydney to Melbourne which is a couple of hours - again same old rubbish food, but food was given out.

Oh yes, I forgot about the chicken paste in the folded over flatbread. They used to do a proper meal service on short-haul flights. As in a meal that would require a tray table.

[Halmyre]

carl_w said:

hman said:

DJRC said:

Define food? But yes they do. On the heathrow to Rome flight it's usually a chicken sandwich in some pinch fold over flatbread. These days if possible I pay the 119quid and upgrade to business just to avoid it! It's similar in their heathrow to Munich flights. Lofty offer tesco white sandwich bread sandwiches filled with something on the same routes. As do Swiss from uk to Zurich and or Geneve. I fly and have flown these routes every week for the last 4 yrs.

I flew with BA from CPT to DUR which is all of about an hour - BA gave out food it was rubbish.

I flew from Sydney to Melbourne which is a couple of hours - again same old rubbish food, but food was given out.

Oh yes, I forgot about the chicken paste in the folded over flatbread. They used to do a proper meal service on short-haul flights. As in a meal that would require a tray table.

Any time we've flown EasyJet or similar lo-co to le continong we get a couple of packs of sandwiches and a drink from Boots; their stuff is cheaper and more palatable than the airlines'. First time we did it we were a bit embarrassed but the cabin crew couldn't care less; probably made their task easier having one less pair of 'customers' to deal with.

[loafer123]

I always take food on for short haul flights. I usually get lots of jealous looks from my fellow passengers.

[carl_w]

loafer123 said:

I always take food on for short haul flights. I usually get lots of jealous looks from my fellow passengers.

I was on an Alitalia flight and I thought I'd got away with it as the last remaining seat on the plane was the middle seat next to me, and no-one was coming through the door. Eventually a guy turned up with a KFC Chicken Zinger Tower or something, and needless to say he was sitting next to me.

[AstonZagato]

Gordon Ramsey's Plane Food in LHR T5 does a picnic you can take on a flight. I generally eat on the ground.

[anonymous-user]

loafer123 said:

I always take food on for short haul flights. I usually get lots of jealous looks from my fellow passengers.

I sometimes take ready meals on Longhaul flights. I particularly like the Singapore noodles from marks and spencer. The crew heat it up in the galley ovens.

[oyster]

Amazed at the amount of people who travel economy for work. Hardly showing that your company values your time, productivity or loyalty.

I hope you're paid well above market to counter-balance it?

[Matt Harper]

oyster said:

Amazed at the amount of people who travel economy for work. Hardly showing that your company values your time, productivity or loyalty.

I hope you're paid well above market to counter-balance it?

May largely be dependent on who's paying - your employer or your client. I travel by air very extensively, mainly within the contiguous US, but I do a LOT of international too.

Our clients are large, international corporations, all of whom have similar vendor travel policies and many of whom have their own travel service that we are obliged to use when booking travel to conduct business with them.

Generally, if its less than 5 hours flight duration, with an overnight before work starts - it's coach, less than 3 hours and working same day, coach. Redeye home? Coach. Most of my peers in the business I'm in work the same set of rules.

However, all international is business/first - and with the amount of air travel I do, I rack-up some pretty serious status and air-miles. The consequence of that is, with a bit of careful selection of flights, I'm almost always up-graded on Delta, Star Alliance, One-World and even budget carriers like AirTran.

Happily I rarely have to endure the coach-roach experience and when I'm forced to, I have instant recall of the exit-row seat numbers on all of the mainstream US carriers, which I also get first dibbs on, due to being intergalactic presidential platinum cubit zirconium preferred.

[King Herald]

blueg33 said:

.....I certainly don't sleep on flights under about 16 hours.

Hmmm, I can't think of any flight I have done that was OVER 16 hours. Hong Kong to Canada is 15, Houston to Doha is 16, but nothing longer than that in one hit. Houston to Singapore, via Moscow, is two back to back 12 hour flights, same plane, but with an hour or two off plane in Moscow to 'stretch your legs'......

[King Herald]

oyster said:

Amazed at the amount of people who travel economy for work. Hardly showing that your company values your time, productivity or loyalty.

I hope you're paid well above market to counter-balance it?

I'm just a lowly mechanic, and Business Class travel from Philippines to USA, would probably cost more than the salary they pay me, so, no, they don't value me that much.

Maybe if I was a 6'6" tall, broad shouldered business manager, like most other PH members, I'd get to turn left on the plane.

[RYH64E]

oyster said:

Amazed at the amount of people who travel economy for work. Hardly showing that your company values your time, productivity or loyalty.

I hope you're paid well above market to counter-balance it?

I guess it depends if your spending your own money or someone else's, in my case it's my business so I consider the money to be mine as well. I just checked the cost of a return flight to Shanghai in October, £1k cattle class or £6k upper class (Virgin), that's a big saving for a bit of discomfort.

[Halmyre]

King Herald said:

oyster said:

Amazed at the amount of people who travel economy for work. Hardly showing that your company values your time, productivity or loyalty.

I hope you're paid well above market to counter-balance it?

I'm just a lowly mechanic, and Business Class travel from Philippines to USA, would probably cost more than the salary they pay me, so, no, they don't value me that much.

Maybe if I was a 6'6" tall, broad shouldered business manager, like most other PH members, I'd get to turn left on the plane.

Nah; you need the goatee as well.

[blueg33]

King Herald said:

blueg33 said:

.....I certainly don't sleep on flights under about 16 hours.

Hmmm, I can't think of any flight I have done that was OVER 16 hours. Hong Kong to Canada is 15, Houston to Doha is 16, but nothing longer than that in one hit. Houston to Singapore, via Moscow, is two back to back 12 hour flights, same plane, but with an hour or two off plane in Moscow to 'stretch your legs'......

I didnt say there were any over 16 hours, I suspect there aren't, the longest single public flight I have done was around 13 hours, London to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hongkong, Singapore and Buenos Aires are slightly shorter.

The point was I dont sleep on aircraft.

[boxst]

oyster said:

Amazed at the amount of people who travel economy for work. Hardly showing that your company values your time, productivity or loyalty.

I hope you're paid well above market to counter-balance it?

Yes. Sadly I haven't travelled business class (without a free upgrade) since the heady heights of the .com boom where they even stupidly booked business class for European travel.

Last company was premium economy, but even that got cancelled a few months after I started and now my current company is economy only.

I can see the point, I'm in San Francisco now and that ticket was 2K for economy, business was 5.5K. Multiply that by the number of employees travelling and there goes your profit.

[Jimbeaux]

King Herald said:

blueg33 said:

.....I certainly don't sleep on flights under about 16 hours.

Hmmm, I can't think of any flight I have done that was OVER 16 hours. Hong Kong to Canada is 15, Houston to Doha is 16, but nothing longer than that in one hit. Houston to Singapore, via Moscow, is two back to back 12 hour flights, same plane, but with an hour or two off plane in Moscow to 'stretch your legs'......

He pays more to have them swing wide when he wants an air nap.