
Think Legroom on Planes Is Bad Now? It’s Going to Get Worse - jaoued
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-25/this-airline-plans-to-break-a-record-cramming-flyers-into-jets
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alexhutcheson
Weird title- the story isn’t really about reduction in leg room (seat pitch)
it’s reduction in seat width.

Cebu Pacific is getting A330 aircraft with a 3-3-3 configuration in economy,
instead of the 2-4-2 configuration that most airlines use for that aircraft.
The result is seats that are only 16.5” wide. I already find the 17.5” wide
seats on the 787 to be very uncomfortable for long-haul flights, so I can’t
imagine squeezing into 16.5” seats.

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moltar
Which could work quite well since Asians have a smaller frame on average.

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gumby
Is that really true? Smaller than whom?

I have large and small relatives on both sides of my family. And while my
mother is quite small, her kids, nieces and nephews, none of whom spent their
childhood in the middle of a war as she did, appear anecdotally to cluster
around the global mean.

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moltar
This shows height by country. I’m assuming the rest of the body is also
proportional.

Canada and Philippines has a 10cm difference for males. That’s about 6%.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_worldwide)

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coldcode
30in is the smallest seat pitch I can sit in, anything less is anatomically
impossible for me. Removing bathrooms from planes is even more insane, what do
passengers do, crap in the aisles? Open the door? I still imagine a future
where people are stuffed into tubes at the top and dropped out the bottom.

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RickJWagner
Height is a two-edged sword.

Tall people have some advantages over short people. Short people have a few
advantages, too. Plane legroom is one of them.

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CydeWeys
Only if you fly the absolute most budget carriers, though. Which fortunately I
haven't done yet! (Unless EasyJet counts; does it?)

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NikkiA
> Unless EasyJet counts

it does.

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CydeWeys
They didn't have all the extra bullshit fees that Ryannair does, at least. I
got no hassle about my carry-on luggage and I could check in whenever. So I'd
argue there's still a tier that's worse than EasyJet, which includes the
Ryanairs of the world.

Though the overbooking experience I had with EasyJet was definitely pretty
terrible and reeked of budget airline; I almost did not make it on the flight
I bought a ticket for because it was overbooked. Other people definitely
didn't make it.

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samstave
Whats the status of all the grounded max planes?

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roryrjb
Not surprising at all that Ryan Air is being mentioned, only had bad
experiences with them. Also is legroom really one word?

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esotericn
It's kind of amusing to read this sort of headline in the current context.
Feels like it's ten or twenty years out of date.

Flying is a colossal use of resources that in almost all cases is pure luxury.

Less legroom is a good thing.

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zakk
I am much taller than average, way above the 99th percentile.

In some airlines I simply cannot seat, as my legs don’t fit. Sometimes flying
is physically painful.

I don’t see why making passengers extremely uncomfortable should be a good
thing.

If you think flying is bad maybe you should find some other ways of
disincentivizing it, rather than making people that might be flying for
legitimate reasons extremely uncomfortable!

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Wowfunhappy
> In some airlines I simply cannot seat, as my legs don’t fit.

I have to ask, what happens when you get on such a plane, given that you’re
required to sit down for certain portions of a flight? Are you asked to leave?

