- "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."
- "Modern next-generation LED lighting systems aboard the A321XLR gently transition through customised hues, mimicking natural sunrises and sunsets to help reset the body’s circadian rhythm. Temperature control is split into three actively controlled zones, and airlines can even opt for heated floor panels to give passengers an extra touch of cozy luxury. Last but not least, advanced acoustic technologies have been integrated through the aircraft’s frame to minimise engine noise, resulting in a 50% noise footprint reduction compared to previous-generation single-aisle aircraft."
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.
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?
Whenever a pillow is included on a flight, I always stuff it behind my lower back. I can't remember the last time I actually used a pillow for its intended purpose when not flying in a lie-flat seat.
Maybe its due to the lessons learned, the extreme conservatism in air travel should be up to a disruption. It's nice that they make blue light to look like the sky but:
1) The windows are disappointing. This is, I think, due to the fatigue caused by large rectangular windows that previously caused a disaster but it begs for improvement. A way to make large windows or get rid of all the windows and use very high definition screens to imitate windows with live footage would be nicer
2) Noise is still a problem. I am sure they are trying hard, even the engines are designed around addressing the noise issue but it would be a huge improvement to have this solved. ANC maybe?
3) Automate the pilot out. This is I believe an area where plane makers are pioneers but we still got pilots, I would love to see flying with a plane becoming about the same as taking an elevator.
IMHO travel times are reasonable, the improvements in comfort, cost and practicality are due. Airports themselves too are due for an overhaul, it shouldn't be taking hours to get on a travel machine.
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 better experience.
I always think of the early scene in the movie Home Alone when Catherine O'Hara's character asks her husband if they should feel bad about the kids flying coach while they're in business, and he assures her that the kids are fine. That's the right way to do it!
(Before the inevitable "but!"s, yes, I know that won't work super well if you just have one kid traveling with you; it's understandable that you might not feel comfortable with them sitting alone. And of course they need to be of a certain age, or have old enough siblings, to be on their own in that situation. But that's not an excuse to bring your kids up to first or business class. You should be flying with them in economy if they can't sit there on their own.)
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 will be blocked for a significant portion of shorter flights by food/bev carts.
By contrast, on a widebody, there are restrooms front and rear. If your access to one is blocked, you can go the other way, and you can _also_ use the front or rear to access the _other_ aisle. It's the difference between feeling totally confined versus freedom to move about (other than having to hassle any passengers between yourself and the aisle).
I admit, with limited cabin service in economy, on a longer flight, the blocked aisle isn't such an issue -- but on the typical 1.5-3h narrowbody flight, the food/bev service does seem to be a significant obstruction.
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+. Airlines are slowly expanding premium cabins, and I'd be hopeful that narrowbodies like this permit further growth, but the demand seems to be increasing faster than the supply, so the prices are still crazy.
> 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.
Not covered: the inevitable even-smaller lavatory to further insult the dignity of the flying public.
At this point, the designers of narrow-body interiors should be actively shamed for how hostile they have made lavatory designs. In a world in which every major flying population is aging and more overweight, yet every generation of airplane lavatories is even narrower and less accessible for everyone.
Introduce a larger one that you have to sign up for digitally to wait in line and be notified when it is available and charge for the privilege. Hell, make it auction based so if you want to jump the line you can if you pay for it.
I am laughing reading your "hellish capitalism" proposals. How about we add surge pricing? Or fully dynamic pricing, so you arrive at the bog and learn that it costs 30 quid to relieve yourself?
Because everyone sleeps soundly with bright blue LED lighting blaring in their faces.
I fail to see what's innovative about "we shoved business class seats into a narrow-body aircraft".
An A321 is still an A321.
Flying internationally in a single-aisle aircraft is under any circumstances torture no matter how you sugar coat it: "Come fly in our modern, innovative sardine can."
By the way BA did this years ago with their London City A318 which doesn't exist anymore because it was a failure that merely burned money.
Remember that airlines almost always opt for the more cramped and cheaper variants of interiors, asking "ok but how do we fit even more cattle in here?"
We flew from IAD to DUB on Aer Lingus a month ago. Outbound was an A321neo LR/XLR and it was not bad at all. Legroom was fine (for me at 5'7"), big overhead bins should be required these days, and the entertainment setup was passable. The only complaint was flaky seat-back trays that required a real SLAM to latch. The damn things were constantly dropping down, getting slammed back not quite hard enough, and falling again. Not all of them, but enough it was noticeable.
Return was on their A330, which was noticeable worse in every way EXCEPT it's 2-4-2 seatings, so we had a pair of outside seats to ourselves, where on the A321, it's 3-3, so you have a neighbor in the window seat.
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 enjoyment anyone else has is really an accidental side effect.
> 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 ...
You got it backwards. If economy passengers preferred better services to cheaper fare, they would have chosen airlines with better services, and airlines would have to adapt accordingly, offering better and more expensive services.
They can't, because when it comes to their wallets, passengers don't actually prefer that, whatever they say online.
Business/first class passengers are a minority group who say "Fuck it, I have money, I want to be treated like I have money." So of course airlines offer them better service - at a much higher price.
> Business/first class passengers are a minority group who say "Fuck it, I have money, I want to be treated like I have money."
I'm pretty sure that that majority of people flying in business class are paid for by their employer. First class is another story: It is people not quite rich enough for private jets, but want to sleep on their flight. Hardly any business pays for first class tickets. However, many regular business travellers can accrue enough miles to get periodic upgrades.
Not aware of a term, per se, but this is typical of many service-related goods, especially in transportation and communications in which the fundamental underlying service (getting somewhere, getting a message somewhere) is not readily differentiated. That's directly applicable to the air-travel example here.
19th century French polymath (economist, engineer, bureaucrat) Jules Dupuit famously described this concerning railway carriage accomodations and the parlous state of third-class carriages:
It is not because of the several thousand francs which they would have to spend to cover the third class wagons or to upholster the benches. ... [I]t would happily sacrifice this [expense] for the sake of its popularity.
Its goal is to stop the traveler who can pay for the second class trip from going third class. It hurts the poor not because it wants them to personally suffer, but to scare the rich.
You'll find similar examples in digital / software goods, where product differentiation (and price discrimination) are often achieved by producing otherwise identical goods, and then selectively disabling features in the lower-priced variants. Microsoft Windows NT server vs. workstation was one early notorious example, though IBM also apparently included No-OP loops in servers which could be disabled for higher performance. See: <https://landley.net/history/mirror/ms/differences_nt.html>.
I don't think it's that. It's just what the mass market wants. For economy-class passengers, the overwhelmingly first-place concern is the price of the ticket. People accept shit service, shit food, random seat assignments, inconvenient timing and connections, etc. all for a cheaper ticket. For some people, the ticket cost is the only thing they care about.
So it's a race to the bottom. Airlines are famously low-margin businesses, so they really have no choice but to save as much money as they can by continually pushing the envelope on what depravities passengers will accept. And as they keep pushing, people complain, but they still eat it up and love the lower prices.
If economy class passengers would actually pay for perks and a nicer experience, the airlines would provide it. And sometimes they kinda-sorta do, via economy plus, premium economy, and similar (whatever the particular airline chooses to call it). But, by and large, people just care about the lowest price, so many planes don't even have mid-range service options, and some airlines don't even offer them at all.
It's a shame everyone can't fly first class, but I guess this is just life? I've had the opportunity to take an international business class flight and couldn't believe how great I felt after the trip. Huge difference getting that extra legroom to actually lay flat and sleep.
Also, the business class staff are so nice, they make you feel like a million bucks.
For coach, I wish they would just stack people in laying down. Laying down for the flight would be much better than sitting. I don't see why they couldn't get the same amount of people in if they configured the plane correctly.
37 comments
[ 10.4 ms ] story [ 84.7 ms ] thread- "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."
- "Modern next-generation LED lighting systems aboard the A321XLR gently transition through customised hues, mimicking natural sunrises and sunsets to help reset the body’s circadian rhythm. Temperature control is split into three actively controlled zones, and airlines can even opt for heated floor panels to give passengers an extra touch of cozy luxury. Last but not least, advanced acoustic technologies have been integrated through the aircraft’s frame to minimise engine noise, resulting in a 50% noise footprint reduction compared to previous-generation single-aisle aircraft."
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.
1) The windows are disappointing. This is, I think, due to the fatigue caused by large rectangular windows that previously caused a disaster but it begs for improvement. A way to make large windows or get rid of all the windows and use very high definition screens to imitate windows with live footage would be nicer
2) Noise is still a problem. I am sure they are trying hard, even the engines are designed around addressing the noise issue but it would be a huge improvement to have this solved. ANC maybe?
3) Automate the pilot out. This is I believe an area where plane makers are pioneers but we still got pilots, I would love to see flying with a plane becoming about the same as taking an elevator.
IMHO travel times are reasonable, the improvements in comfort, cost and practicality are due. Airports themselves too are due for an overhaul, it shouldn't be taking hours to get on a travel machine.
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 better experience.
I always think of the early scene in the movie Home Alone when Catherine O'Hara's character asks her husband if they should feel bad about the kids flying coach while they're in business, and he assures her that the kids are fine. That's the right way to do it!
(Before the inevitable "but!"s, yes, I know that won't work super well if you just have one kid traveling with you; it's understandable that you might not feel comfortable with them sitting alone. And of course they need to be of a certain age, or have old enough siblings, to be on their own in that situation. But that's not an excuse to bring your kids up to first or business class. You should be flying with them in economy if they can't sit there on their own.)
What is so bad about having your child sit in front or in back of you? To the side might be a bit difficult as you need to reach across the aisle.
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 will be blocked for a significant portion of shorter flights by food/bev carts.
By contrast, on a widebody, there are restrooms front and rear. If your access to one is blocked, you can go the other way, and you can _also_ use the front or rear to access the _other_ aisle. It's the difference between feeling totally confined versus freedom to move about (other than having to hassle any passengers between yourself and the aisle).
I admit, with limited cabin service in economy, on a longer flight, the blocked aisle isn't such an issue -- but on the typical 1.5-3h narrowbody flight, the food/bev service does seem to be a significant obstruction.
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+. Airlines are slowly expanding premium cabins, and I'd be hopeful that narrowbodies like this permit further growth, but the demand seems to be increasing faster than the supply, so the prices are still crazy.
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.
At this point, the designers of narrow-body interiors should be actively shamed for how hostile they have made lavatory designs. In a world in which every major flying population is aging and more overweight, yet every generation of airplane lavatories is even narrower and less accessible for everyone.
I fail to see what's innovative about "we shoved business class seats into a narrow-body aircraft".
An A321 is still an A321.
Flying internationally in a single-aisle aircraft is under any circumstances torture no matter how you sugar coat it: "Come fly in our modern, innovative sardine can."
By the way BA did this years ago with their London City A318 which doesn't exist anymore because it was a failure that merely burned money.
Return was on their A330, which was noticeable worse in every way EXCEPT it's 2-4-2 seatings, so we had a pair of outside seats to ourselves, where on the A321, it's 3-3, so you have a neighbor in the window seat.
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 enjoyment anyone else has is really an accidental side effect.
You got it backwards. If economy passengers preferred better services to cheaper fare, they would have chosen airlines with better services, and airlines would have to adapt accordingly, offering better and more expensive services.
They can't, because when it comes to their wallets, passengers don't actually prefer that, whatever they say online.
Business/first class passengers are a minority group who say "Fuck it, I have money, I want to be treated like I have money." So of course airlines offer them better service - at a much higher price.
19th century French polymath (economist, engineer, bureaucrat) Jules Dupuit famously described this concerning railway carriage accomodations and the parlous state of third-class carriages:
It is not because of the several thousand francs which they would have to spend to cover the third class wagons or to upholster the benches. ... [I]t would happily sacrifice this [expense] for the sake of its popularity.
Its goal is to stop the traveler who can pay for the second class trip from going third class. It hurts the poor not because it wants them to personally suffer, but to scare the rich.
<https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/why-does-air-travel-suck-...>
More on Dupuit:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Dupuit>
You'll find similar examples in digital / software goods, where product differentiation (and price discrimination) are often achieved by producing otherwise identical goods, and then selectively disabling features in the lower-priced variants. Microsoft Windows NT server vs. workstation was one early notorious example, though IBM also apparently included No-OP loops in servers which could be disabled for higher performance. See: <https://landley.net/history/mirror/ms/differences_nt.html>.
(I've ... mentioned Dupuit previously: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.)
So it's a race to the bottom. Airlines are famously low-margin businesses, so they really have no choice but to save as much money as they can by continually pushing the envelope on what depravities passengers will accept. And as they keep pushing, people complain, but they still eat it up and love the lower prices.
If economy class passengers would actually pay for perks and a nicer experience, the airlines would provide it. And sometimes they kinda-sorta do, via economy plus, premium economy, and similar (whatever the particular airline chooses to call it). But, by and large, people just care about the lowest price, so many planes don't even have mid-range service options, and some airlines don't even offer them at all.
Also, the business class staff are so nice, they make you feel like a million bucks.
To the back of the plane, all you poor people!