
New Planes That May Change Travel - walterbell
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/new-planes-that-will-change-the-way-you-travel
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CodeSheikh
These are not newer planes but iterations of existing models. Granted that
airline industry is slower in churning out newer planes than say automobile
for obvious reasons, but you don't say Nissan is launching a newer car called
Altima TTZ.

However, for the sake of the argument if any iterations of these existing
planes is worth citing as a "newer" plane then IMO it is A350-1000ULR which is
going to operate the longest flights ever from Australia to New
York/Johannesburg/London/Brazil [https://www.ausbt.com.au/airbus-mulls-ultra-
long-range-a350-...](https://www.ausbt.com.au/airbus-mulls-ultra-long-
range-a350-1000ulr-for-non-stop-qantas-flights)

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Gravityloss
The Bombardier C series / Airbus 220 is new. Bombardier only made smaller rear
engine jets earlier. There's a really nice video of the advanced carbon fiber
wing, made in Belfast.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aNoA3krV6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aNoA3krV6g)

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noobermin
The largest piece of the puzzle is air travel has progressively gotten worse
over the last few decades since the deregulation of the airline industry, it
really doesn't matter than new planes have more space or are more fuel
efficient. Airline companies will still pack more people in like sardines and
charge for more and more for baggage since their stockholders want it.

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gumby
> The largest piece of the puzzle is air travel has progressively gotten worse
> over the last few decades since the deregulation

I challenge this (I have been flying since 1967 and have multiple millions of
frequent flyer miles).

I will agree that the typical flight quality of an economy passenger today is
worse than it was in the 1970s. But consider:

1 - many more people are able to fly today than could so in the days of
regulation.

2 - The market, not the shareholders, has chosen the feature/price point they
want: ultra-ultra-low-cost airlines (Ryan/Spirit) don't dominate the market; a
plurality of flyers are willing to pay a bit more to get more than _that_ ,
while attempts at launching higher levels of default service have suffered. So
it isn't that people always choose the cheapest (or all we'd have is Spirit).
At the same time you can pay more for the full-service experience if you want
(business, called first in the US).

3 - The whole experience is safer and more comfortable than it used to be. An
original 747 was spacious, but prone to accidents, more stops because there
was no long range flights (Sydney-London is 24 hours with one stop now; in the
late 70s it was 36 hours with four refueling stops). And the business and
international first are a lot more comfortable; business today costs about
what coach did in the 70s.

My first flight was on a VC-20 (I have a BOAC junior log book -- signed by the
captain of each flight! -- of every flight I took between 1967 and 1975) and I
flew 747 in 72 and frankly I'd not want to fly that way again. Oh yeah, planes
had smoking sections into the late 1990s (and later in Russia, Korea, parts of
Africa, and probably other places I didn't fly).

What _has_ gotten worse is the histrionic rubbish _before_ you board. What a
waste of human life the TSA is.

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Aloha
I disagree with your contention that the 747 was unreliable, in its first
decade of operation it only had 7 hull loss accidents. A comparable number to
the DC-10 or A300 - interestingly enough, much more than the L-1011.

I do agree with you completely about the security theater aspects of the TSA

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747_hull_losses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747_hull_losses)

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gumby
Yes, that was a careless mis editing on my part. Thank you for highlighting
it.

What I meant to say was that yes, you had more room in a 747, but overall
passenger flight safety these days is amazingly high in an absolute sense and
a massive improvement over flight safety of the 60s and 70s.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
> The buzz: Domestic flights that will get a lot comfier in coach

I have been hearing that for a long time with every new airplane that gets
introduced. The truth is that coach will always asymptotically suck.

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metafizikal
While having a guaranteed wider seat is nice, I've never found the width of
coach seats to be all that terrible -- it's the lack of leg room, and the
airlines continue to have sole discretion on how many rows of seats they'll
jam in to these new planes.

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EliRivers
Seat tilters. That's the biggest discomfort for me. The person in the seat
ahead tilting back. If there was a seating section that didn't tilt, I'd take
it. I'd even pay a little extra for it.

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toomuchtodo
Bulkhead seats. Seatguru is your friend.

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reaperducer
And when they're already all sold?

Or when, like happened to me, you get involuntarily relocated from the exit
row seat you paid extra for? (Without compensation, since it was done by the
flight crew during boarding and not in advance. Thanks, Singapore Airlines!)

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toomuchtodo
Sometimes it's unavoidable. In your anecdote's scenario, I would perform a
credit card chargeback.

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kurthr
It isn't mentioned in the article, but I hope the new commuter jets don't
sacrifice speed for economy on longer flights... spending an extra 30-40min in
the air for the same route is a good reason to choose a 737 instead. You can
filter for it on most of the flight aggregators.

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brajkovic
Can you elaborate on this? Where can I filter for this? I absolutely hate
flying, so even saving 30 minutes would be great, if the costs aren't out of
control.

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kurthr
Both Google and Kayak... and I think most others will let you filter flight
legs by length although they usually include layovers, which may or may not be
match your weighting.

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Damogran6
Nothing about Legroom. At 6'5", I'm learning why Dad wanted to drive
everywhere. Leave when you want. Take whatever luggage you want. Eat food when
you want. No TSA Patdown. No bait n switch airfare purchase meatgrinder.

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overcast
Anything less than 6+ hours or so, it's just as efficient to drive, depending
on how big of a circus your airport is. More than that, planes start to be
much quicker in transit time. Doesn't really solve the legroom part though.

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cptaj
Am I the only one that doesnt really care about quality? I want cheaper
flights and thats it.

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fipple
The very price sensitive customers like you are very numerous, but it’s the
frequent price-insensitive business travelers that make up much more of the
industry’s profits. So they care much more about the 5 million frequent
business travelers, who do care about these things, than they do about the 500
million occasional travelers, half of whom have little to no profitability
impact on the airline.

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joering2
I highly doubt it. And do you have anything ti back that up? Because 5 million
versus 500 that seems large difference.

Afaik airlines constantly lose money and the only time they make up for the
whole year are xmas and national holidays such as thankgiving and independence
day. In fact even when you buy xmas time ticket in 2030, it will be
accordingly overpriced.

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stevesearer
Here is a relevant and interesting video about airline classes and pricing:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc)

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jandrese
I liked how enthusiastic this article was that the airlines would outfit their
planes with 2x3 seating and wider seats instead of figuring out some way to
cram 3x3 seating in there.

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Aloha
The aircraft the A220 is replace is about the Size of an MD-90/95 - which I
suspect is what its meant to replace, which was also 2x3. 17 inch wide seats
are the norm in the industry.

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jandrese
Yes, but I never trust airlines not to try to squeeze in even smaller seats
when given even a whiff of a chance. And then of course the overhead bins will
be insufficient because they were only sized for 5 per row instead of 6...

Pretty much every commuter flight already has an announcement beforehand that
overhead bin space will be extra tight and gate checking is available if you
don't mind waiting 15 minutes for your bag when you get to your destination.

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mudil
Boeing 787 is a magnificent machine. Pleasure to fly: from bigger windows, to
higher humidity, to fuel efficiency, to innovative materials, to arching
beautiful wings!

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pluc
How much more does it cost for the bigger window and the innovative material
seat?

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ceejayoz
I don't know that the windows add much cost directly - they're just a bonus
side-effect from the carbon fiber construction. The innovative materials are
for cost _savings_ \- carbon fiber instead of metal means less worry about
metal fatigue, which means you don't have to take the whole plane apart as
frequently to look for cracks. (Lighter too, which reduces fuel consumption.)

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jbob2000
> Boom - It'll fly you from Tokyo to San Francisco in less than six hours.

Yes, but that's one of the only routes it will fly. With the Concorde, we
discovered that flying supersonic jets around population centers is a big
deal-breaker because of the supersonic boom.

Given how _few_ of these routes you can actually fly, I expect Boom will come
to the same realization that the airline industry did 20+ years ago; you can't
make money on supersonic.

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umanwizard
US west coast <-> East Asia, and US east coast <-> Western Europe (especially
London/Paris) already covers a sizeable fraction of business travel, doesn't
it?

Those are basically the four major global economic centers. And among those
four, the only link that this service can't provide is Europe <-> East Asia.

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philwelch
> And among those four, the only link that this service can't provide is
> Europe <-> East Asia.

Really? Most of those routes are either trans-arctic or trans-Siberian.

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blackrock
I highly doubt it. I don't see anything different here.

Same old song.

These airplanes run on jet fuel, and require a pair of human pilots to
operate. This means that these planes have a high operational cost.

Meaning that the airline companies will eventually cram everyone into the
smallest space they can. Everyone will be miserable in economy. But if you
upgrade for just $100, then you can get another inch of legroom in economy-
plus!

For the Boeing 787 to be bragging about better fuel efficiency.. Well.. so
what? That is really irrelevant to me, because I am paying the same amount for
the ticket, or more. And they still cram everyone into the maximum amount of
misery possible in economy class.

And for the planes that are bragging about being able to fly 20 hours.. Can
you imagine the horror of flying internationally in economy? And trying to get
some sleep during the flight?

I can. Welcome to our new future of flying. Nothing but misery ahead. Unless
of course, you want to splurge a little more on First Class tickets.

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amelius
I'm hoping that VR goggles will change travel ...

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craftyguy
I'm hoping they give all classes of seats a bare minimum of 35" of leg
room/seat pitch. That would be a _huge_ change to air travel.

