
Redesigning the Economy Airline Seat - ohjeez
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90169957/the-miserable-economy-airplane-seat-just-got-a-major-redesign
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higginsc
One of my least favorite aspects of airline seats is that it seems like the
curvature is designed for someone of average height--which I totally get--but
extraordinarily uncomfortable for people outside of that range. I'm looking at
you, United economy regional planes. I'm 6'2", and the base of my skull lands
exactly at a sharp, hard edge on those planes and leads to utter misery. I'm
not sure how to fix that. Just bitching. This is the internet after all.

~~~
collyw
You get to enjoy yourself at concerts, and society apparently prefers tall
men. Appreciate what you do have in life, thats what I try to do (as someone
closer to the other end of the scale by western standards at least).

~~~
specialist
We tall people also die sooner, require more back surgery, can't find clothes
that fit, slouch to fit in. Tradeoffs. I'd be okay with being average.

\---

Being broad and preferring to not touch strangers, I lean away. So after a
long flight, I'm generally in quite a bit of pain, more as I get older.

I've like the design proposals showing staggered seating.

Alternately, I kinda wish my culture (and myself) was okay with touching. Like
soldiers packed into troop transports. Everyone's suffering the same, so they
just accept it.

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forapurpose
> The contoured spine follows an ergonomic curve all the way up to the
> headrest, which the company claims allows for a more comfortable posture in
> the upright position. “Our back is more contoured than most, which places
> the head more naturally above the body to stop it falling forward,” Pearson
> says.

Why do airplane seats not place my head _naturally_ above my body? I get a
stiff neck when awake, and as for sleeping, they are like church pews - as if
the airlines purposely want to make it uncomfortable. Is there a safety reason
to push my head forward?

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askafriend
My guess would be to prevent whiplash. Some car headrests also force your head
forward into a more active position for this reason.

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njarboe
I wonder what the crash rate of western airlines are at this point? For
fatalities it is about 0/year. Maybe it is time to re-evaluate plane interiors
for the trade-off between safety and comfort.

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askafriend
What you want is turbulence frequency and severity, not crash rate.

I suspect metrics like these are what primarily drive these kinds of decisions
rather than crashes since actual crashes are super rare.

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nlawalker
I remember reading years ago about a neat idea: airplane seats where the
reclining control causes the seat pan to slide forward instead of the back
leaning back, so that if you'd like to recline it's _your_ knees that get
smashed.

What ever happened to that? I've never seen it implemented anywhere.

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andymcsherry
Some airlines use these, such as ANA. They're much less comfortable than the
traditional seats when you're trying to sleep though. On long-haul where
everyone wants to sleep, it's preferable to have all the seats recline. You
lose less knee space by someone reclining in front of you then sliding your
seat forward.

~~~
Someone1234
> They're much less comfortable than the traditional seats when you're trying
> to sleep though.

For you, not the person behind whose knees you're crushing.

~~~
andymcsherry
Airline seat pitch and recline is pretty well documented, and you can do
research before you book your flight:
[https://www.seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php](https://www.seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php)

If I'm going to be on a plane for a long time, I do research to find the right
balance between comfort and price. Part of deciding on that comfort is whether
or not I can recline the seat and whether the seat in front of me reclines.
Part of my purchase is the ability to recline the seat for my comfort. If I'm
going to be a long flight, I certainly don't want to sit upright the entire
time because the person behind me didn't research whether or not that seat
would be comfortable for them.

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iambateman
I was recently on a flight with Frontier that used similar, thin-profile
seats. They were definitely less comfortable, but I really appreciated the
sight lines. Plus, it felt like there was substantially more room between me
and the next seat.

All in all, I felt like it was a good trade.

~~~
Analemma_
> All in all, I felt like it was a good trade.

Well, it's a good trade until Frontier decides to use that additional room to
cram in more rows of seats. Which they _will_ do, sooner or later. And then
you'll have just as little leg room as before _and_ a less comfortable seat.
Gotta love the race to the bottom.

~~~
njarboe
If airplane ticket search sites reported the seat dimensions (Google, you can
do this. Do good?) and let you filter on them, then the airlines might have
some motivation to have larger spaces for passengers. Since price is almost
the only thing one can easily understand about the flight, that gets the
focus. With my build I touch the seat in front of me on most seat
configurations. I'd pay at least $20/hr for an extra inch.

This is also what is causing flight times to go up. Airlines are flying slower
to save fuel and I bet only 1% of people know that.

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0xdead_beef
Why don't we have bunk style bed racks for international flights? I'd gladly
take a sedative, crawl into my cubby hole and wake up at my destination 6-12
hours later with no recollection of time loss. Of course, some sort of health
screening would be necessary to ride Anesthesiologist Airlines.

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sithadmin
Safety regulations. Such designs usually can't be evacuated in a manner that
is timely enough to meet requirements.

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njarboe
Safety first might not be a good rule to guide civilization by. It basically
means doing nothing is the best path. Maybe safety third would work better?

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ggm
The willingness of design houses to be complicit in an assault on the
passenger never ceases to amaze me.

None of these people would take the contract to design an ergonomic
guillotine. Would they?

To be slightly less hyperbolic, some people might want to reflect on the role
the FAA has in regulating seat density and some recent hints the passenger
escape test is now felt to be unreal, and a bad test of real life risk.

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whitepoplar
Just put a bunch of Aeron chairs in an airplane! Done! Jokes aside, we've all
sat in comfortable chairs and uncomfortable chairs, in airplanes or otherwise.
What makes a chair comfortable? What's the most comfortable chair you've used?

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choward
For me comfort is all about leg room and has nothing to do with the chairs
themselves. I don't want my knees touching the chair in front of me. If better
designed chairs means more leg room, then I'm more comfortable.

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rconti
I just want two goddamned armrests so I don't have my elbows pinned to my ribs
for a half dozen or a dozen hours. I'm an average-sized male and have no
issues with legroom in economy; as long as I've got 1-2" in front of my knees
I'm golden -- most seats provide more than that.

I'll rant about this until the cows come home; I can pay $39 to upgrade to
slightly-more-legroom class, but all I really want is some armrests. Premium
economy, fleetwide, nationwide, STAT. Currently the only real PE products are
on international flights (from the US perspective).

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kapauldo
I think they are solving the wrong problem. It's not the chair it's the space
between them.

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shakkhar
The space between chairs is not going to increase. It will remain at the
narrowest flyers are willing to endure for cheaper flights. If the seat
designer can claim some extra space, they will be used to cram more rows. That
may lead to cheaper flights, but not more legroom in economy class.

