
Would You Stand on Short Flights if It Meant Cheaper Fares? - Flemlord
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/22/would-you-stand-on-short-flights-if-it-meant-cheaper-fares/
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Tangurena
No. With the holds at gates and taxi times, even if the scheduled flight time
were 10 minutes, my experience is that flights usually have 1 hour of waste:
taxiing, waiting in line to take off, waiting in a holding pattern to land,
waiting for the previous flight at the arrival gate to leave.

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giardini
How about passing out parachutes and jumping off at your stop?

I'm a bit leery of using the following for picking up passengers though ( but
if not, perhaps a special suit with pants open at the derriere might help
jettison excess cargo !8-)):

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPUPOTczy7I&eurl=http%3A%...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPUPOTczy7I&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ejunkworthknowing%2Ecom%2Ftechnology%2Ffulton%5Fskyhook&feature=player_embedded)

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wmeredith
_How about passing out parachutes and jumping off at your stop?_

This is an existing business model.

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ianferrel
I might. I'd at least try it if given a substantial discount. Flying coach is
already an uncomfortable experience. I wouldn't be surprised if short flights
were actually more comfortable standing.

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astine
I thought that this seemed odd till I realized that it was RyanAir. Those guys
will do _anything_ to cut costs.

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CamperBob
I don't get why they'd even propose something like this. It'd be against
commercial passenger air regulations in any reasonable country, because it's
dangerous to let people stand up for the whole flight.

Every so often, people are either killed or end up wearing cervical collars
due to turbulence.

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tptacek
It's dangerous to let people stand in a normally-equipped airliner. That
doesn't mean there isn't some way to outfit one to safely hold standing
passengers.

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mrduncan
I suspect that if RyanAir offers this they will nickel and dime those standing
passengers for everything to recoup the lost ticket revenue. For example, in
the standing configuration they effectively eliminate the overhead storage,
that's one more bag passengers will have to check.

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astine
RyanAir already nickels and dimes passengers. How would this be different?

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matt1
They said they polled 120K people on their website to gauge the sentiment for
this idea. Isn't it true that polls that depend on self-selection are very
biased? That obviously doesn't completely invalidate the idea, but isn't it a
bit much to use it as supporting evidence?

 _The answer was an overwhelming 'yes' if the tickets were free. Two-thirds of
respondents said they’d stand on flights of less than an hour if their tickets
were free; 42% were willing to do so for tickets that were half-off._

In this case, who knows, it may be only that the hardcore, frequent fliers
responded to the poll and that the majority of fliers actually hate the idea.

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lsb
Given the trend in people packing less into smaller luggage, I wonder how
feasible it would be to completely dispense with the overhead lockers and the
cargo areas and have a bilevel plane, with slightly more room at the seats to
stuff your things.

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lionhearted
I've wondered why an airline doesn't try a "capsule hotel" style setup ever
since I went to Japan.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel>

<http://www.yesicanusechopsticks.com/capsule/>

If you built a section of plane for it specifically, I bet you could fit as
many people, and I'd love to be able to lay out and sleep. Maybe the
engineering or safety wouldn't be possible, but if it was, I think it'd be
fantastic.

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Barnabas
There is a precedent for traveling like this and it's not very positive.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slavetrade2.jpg>

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icey
Given the number of people I've had the fortune to sit next to who believe
flying is not a "shower-required" activity, hell no.

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Kollner
That is just completely out of the question. And I won't have people standing
up next to me either.

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Elessar
It seems like the article neglects to define what a 'short flight' is.

Without stating how long you'd have to stand, any answer would be worthless.

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viggity
Well, I don't think I've ever had a flight that was less than 30-40 minutes.
So I think that most reasonable people could infer that a short flight less
than 60-90 minutes

