I'm generally all for government regulations, especially when the market is such that true competition isn't really possible, but here I have to entirely blame the consumer.
There are more than sufficient airlines on major routes for competition (and you can see this when they get into fare sales for stuff like LAX-ORD for $50). Consumers could be flying airlines like Southwest and Virgin. The fact that they instead choose to fly on airlines like Frontier and Spirit shows that they don't actually care to spend the extra money to have reasonable seats or service.
I especially have to scoff at tech workers, who don't lack the money to make their travel experience more pleasant, but still take redeyes to save money and then complain about how much they hate travelling.
I feel like the people who are fighting for regulations on seat sizes don't understand that those regulations will cause ticket prices to go up. If you're fine with paying extra for a bigger seat, that's cool, but you can also already do that today (Economy Plus or First) without any political fighting. All you'll be doing is removing access to flying for the poorest people.
As for the safety issue, I'm no expert and I haven't seen the original complaint, but the FAA already has a regulation about the maximum time it can take to evacuate a plane (and therefore a limit on the number of seats per door on the plane, effectively). This hits the airlines with no first class cabin hardest, as they actually can't pack the entire 737 full of their standard economy seat.
May be the first step of regulation should be requiring some standard disclosures around seat sizes, etc. If kayak or some other comparison engine showed that you would are getting 2 extra inches for the $40 more when flying Virgin instead of Frontier (hypothetical example), more people would pick Virgin.
I don't necessarily blame the consumer, per se, but I don't think regulations on seating beyond safety are entirely necessary either.
I'm 6'4" and 280lbs- I'd like more length AND width so I pony up the extra $80-150 for whatever version of the economy plus exists on that carrier. I've also found that certain carrier's regular ol' economy are just fine. Delta, Southwest and Alaska routes with the newer generation of plane cabins fit me perfectly adequately. My knees are right up to the seat back in front of me but not IN the seat back in front of me.
I don't bargain shop for my flights at all beside sanity checking the route prices. I'll pretty much do anything to avoid connections, and I refuse to fly United or any budget airline besides Southwest, regardless of price.
I use Alaska as much as possible (live on the west coast), and Delta when I'm going to the east coast or to Europe (they partner with KLM).
I've got status on both so I get all kinds of perks, and the service on Alaska, Delta, and Southwest are about as good as you're going to get in the US (at least once you get some status).
I'll reluctantly fly American if they're the only suitable option for my schedule or are insanely cheaper, but I find that my three first choices generally cover the day sufficiently enough to make it work.
I'm not fond of the SWA cattle call, but I've found their seats to be decently sized, their staff to be human and helpful within their power, and their focus on not nickel and diming is a breathe of fresh air.
> but you can also already do that today (Economy Plus or First)
True, but there is generally a big increase in price. Premium Economy is generally twice the price of Economy. Regulations to push up the Economy seat pitch to a safe level would increase prices for Economy tickets, but given the small size difference, the price increase should be rather modest.
> Consumers could be flying airlines like Southwest and Virgin. The fact that they instead choose to fly on airlines like Frontier and Spirit shows that they don't actually care to spend the extra money to have reasonable seats or service.
Virgin is quite good; Southwest is terrible. They're known for cost, not for service. Their lack of assigned seating is one of many manifestations of that, and it's the primary reason I never fly Southwest.
I almost agree, but IME it's not that easy to visualize the price/seat-size tradeoff in comparison shopping. Is 28 inches a lot for that dimension? Without seeing the rest of the seat, it's hard to be sure. Plus, I don't know how abusive someone is going to be about reclining the seat in front of me.
I think airline travel provides one of the clearest examples of the big different between what people say they want (legroom, good quality food, friendly service), and what they will actually want / will pay for (cheap seats).
Let's not forget, premium economy, business class, first class, private jets are all available in this market for people that actually want large and comfortable seats and are willing to pay more for it.
I once got a free "upgrade" to economy plus. They seated me at a bulkhead and (because no under-seat space) required my carry-on go in the bins where I couldn't see whether my company laptop was being stolen.
If instead I could get elbow room and still have something to read, that might be worthwhile.
Given the choice, consumers would also buy cars without seatbelts of airbags simply because those new cars would cost $700... however, we as a society, have fortunately or unfortunately decided that people shouldn't be given the option to risk their lives in order to save money.
I'm generally against most government regulations, especially in free markets, but I'm fine with the FAA making evacuation regs stricter to force airlines to go back to more leg room.
>There are more than sufficient airlines on major routes for competition (and you can see this when they get into fare sales for stuff like LAX-ORD for $50).
Wait, so because occasionally there are routes with excess capacity this means there is sufficient competition? You seem to have confused the concept of demand competition for some reason. They are orthogonal although related concepts. Airlines having "fire sales" on fares is also not very common. Airlines have adopted a practice called "capacity discipline" which is industry speak for limiting both the number of seats and flights to a destination so as to increase the ticket price[1].
Also it doesn't seem like you are at all aware of the amount of consolidation that has gone on in the industry in the last decade, four major airlines control 80% of the market[2]. Is that your idea of sufficient competition? And there are also many instance where one or more of those 4 don't actually have a direct flight option to your particular destination.
>"Consumers could be flying airlines like Southwest and Virgin. The fact that they instead choose to fly on airlines like Frontier and Spirit shows that they don't actually care to spend the extra money to have reasonable seats or service."
What a bunch of nonsense straw man BS this claim is - because there is a segment of the market that selects predominantly on price means that all consumers don't care? That is beyond absurd.
>"I especially have to scoff at tech workers, who don't lack the money to make their travel experience more pleasant, but still take redeyes to save money and then complain about how much they hate travelling."
Most people I know take red eyes when there is no other choice, examples are an interview or late meeting on the opposite coast. It's also really odd that you believe that everyone who is a "tech worker" is by definition well off financially. There is no shortage of "tech workers" who are between jobs, starting a company and don't yet have income, free lancers, recent grads with student loan debt etc. Odder still is that fact that you have made blanket assumption about people based on their industry and then have chosen to "scoff" at them based on own your own ridiculous assumption.
Regulations can be used appropriately to stop a race to the bottom, and I think airline seats are a good example.
When credit card companies started tweaking terms and conditions to make their cards more and more hostile to consumers, it's hard to be the company that still offers the "right" terms (e.g. Payments above the minimum apply to the highest interest balances first) when most consumers don't even understand what I just wrote.
Similar with airline shopping, seat pitch just isn't visible enough, and even if it was right there next to the price, do most shoppers understand what 28" pitch really means?
A perfectly functioning free market relies on perfect information available to the consumer. Today, we get a price and (usually) a brand name and that's about it. So competition is almost entirely on price.
In cases like these, it benefits everyone to make some regulations setting reasonable ground rules. Freeing airlines from having to compete against 28" seat pitch is like freeing credit card companies from having to compete against predatory terms and conditions.
Yes of course this has an impact on the bottom line. It would marginally increase the cost of tickets the same way the CARD Act made it less profitable to issue cards to certain people, and the same way airbags make cars more expensive.
There are other practices I disdain, like charging extra for a seat assignment or a boarding pass, but those are more visible when buying the ticket and I can more easily avoid it.
I do think if we could get much better and clear labeling on the differences between available seats (pitch, width, recline, power, screen, entertainment, food) it would help a lot. But airline shopping is already very painful, data overload is a real problem.
If the problem is that the data is there but people don't understand it, then you'd see consumers flying a shitty budget airline like Spirit once and then going back to another airline. People will regularly come back to these budget airlines. I really do think that consumers' revealed preferences are just not what most people think they should be.
If we regulated everything consumers didn't understand there wouldn't be much left, eh? :)
At some point, ya gotta have a reasonable amount of faith and let'em learn to fish. There are, of course, exceptions. Safety comes to mind.
Also, if the government has to spend time and energy poking into the minor and the minutiae there won't be anything left for the big real problems that actually require gov intervention. Is that not what we see today? A gov too often bogged down in bullshit. We debated the size of gov when we should focus on role and quality. Geez. We can't even get the scope of the discussion correct.
Gov, like so many things, is a limited resource. We should use it sparingly and wisely. My personal sense is that is not the case. We throw it at everything. Even though it isn't working out well :(
It isn't just the seats. Every time I see I'm going to be on an Embraer I cringe because I can't even stand up in those. If I ever meet the person responsible for that I will have some strong words for him/her.
Yea i think that is a large part of the problem, a kind of variation of the principle agent problem. Either your company forces you to take the cheapest option, so you cannot take into account legroom, or your company doesn't care, and you don't either since it isn't your money, so the airlines can charge ridiculous markups for extra legroom.
Google seems to have a good intermediate policy where you can keep money you save on one trip and use it for upgrades on future travel.
Air travel has become a commodity. Not that it has to be, but most of the airlines approach it that way. Therefore, and the market parrots this, price is the driving force. "Race to the bottom" comes to mind.
Simultaneously, most Westerns consider air travel a right. It's not a proper holiday unless a plane is involved. I'd be curious to know how much air travel is necessary, and how much is simply a choice. I suspect it's the ladder, though the market certainly acts like it's the former.
Long to short, if it we're THAT bad (over a 3+ hr flight), less people would fly. That's not the case, is it?
p.s. I think when you factor in body size, the seats are even more proportionally small. But that too is often a choice. Moral of the story? Human make bad choices. Not to worry i'll refrain from making a comment about politics :)
It also makes it hard for people like me who are far above the average height to even fit in a seat. If I'm forced to travel for work, I have to either be very uncomfortable or pay out of my pocket because the company doesn't want to pay for first class. My knees dig into that little metal rod the seat back pouches have or they go into the armrest in front of me, it's absurd how small cabins are now.
The point is that it's a safety issue. Regulation seems like a good way to deal with this, although I expect there will be heavy pushback from the aviation industry.
I would really like to see a study of the economics of the smaller legroom.
My napkin math tells me if you remove two rows of seats from an all-economy 737, every remaining seat would get an extra 2.5-3 inches of legroom, which is significant.
I wonder how much revenue would this change cost to a major airline.
Seems easy enough to work out with further napkin maths - such planes usually have 24 rows or so, so 2 rows is almost 10% of the capacity / revenue lost (or, at least, you'd need to be getting 10% more for your remaining seats to break even).
Or, in absolute terms - 2 rows = 12 seats, so if you imagine $100 fares, with a few flights per day, you could easily be looking at 5 or 10 thousand dollars a plane per day.
2 rows is how many seats? What are the ~total number of seats? If the price were X, how much would the price have to increase if 2 rows we're removed?
p.s. less passengers also means less fuel, less employees (to some extent), etc. That said, the number of flights, especially on certain routes, has to be limited. At that point the only way up and out is to maximize bodies on the plane. Ya can't add more flights.
I don't think there is any attempt to reduce width on narrow body planes, on them seat width is basically determined by cabin width. 17 inches means you are on a Boeing 737 derivant, 18 inches means you are on a Airbus A318/319/320 derivant. The decline in average width probably means a higher percentage of 737 flights. That increase could be driven by retirement of older planes such as MD-80s that had an 18 inch seat width.
It is enough - on 777 in economy class, you can do 9 abreast (the typical option, 3 + 3 + 3), or 10 abreast (3 + 4 + 3), which airlines are starting to do now.
I'm 6", not overweight, and from Europe: seat width and pitch is a big issue for me. Economy seat width is typically an uncomfortable 17-18 inches, and pitch typically a painful 31".
I have to fly long haul in economy with work (who won't pay for anything else), so my choice is either several hours of pain and discomfort, or to pay a large sum to upgrade myself - if the fare is even upgradable. Bring on the regulation!
While the overweight-passenger issue is a real thing, in this case the seat pitch affects people who are taller. 28" (711mm) seat pitch (which includes the thickness of the seat), doesn't leave much room if your femur is longer than that. So all the Dutch and Scandinavian fliers would really suffer on a 4+ hour flight.
My discomfort increases with time in the air. 2-3 hour flight, I can take lots of discomfort. Long haul there is no-where and nothing you can do but get lucky with an exit seat or pay up for first class. There is only so much wriggling you can do.
People are only getting taller, but leg room is deceasing.
My hope would be to see regulation require more leg room for long haul routes.
Smoking in public places was banned because it's annoying/unpleasant for a lot of people. But they didn't just say that, they called it a safety issue.
This is the same thing. People are uncofortable, and they want to frame it as a safety issue.
> Smoking in public places was banned because it's annoying/unpleasant for a lot of people. But they didn't just say that, they called it a safety issue
Eh... no. Yes, smoking was annoying and unpleasant for a lot of people, but 2nd hand smoke is absolutely a safety issue.
[+] [-] ilyanep|8 years ago|reply
There are more than sufficient airlines on major routes for competition (and you can see this when they get into fare sales for stuff like LAX-ORD for $50). Consumers could be flying airlines like Southwest and Virgin. The fact that they instead choose to fly on airlines like Frontier and Spirit shows that they don't actually care to spend the extra money to have reasonable seats or service.
I especially have to scoff at tech workers, who don't lack the money to make their travel experience more pleasant, but still take redeyes to save money and then complain about how much they hate travelling.
I feel like the people who are fighting for regulations on seat sizes don't understand that those regulations will cause ticket prices to go up. If you're fine with paying extra for a bigger seat, that's cool, but you can also already do that today (Economy Plus or First) without any political fighting. All you'll be doing is removing access to flying for the poorest people.
As for the safety issue, I'm no expert and I haven't seen the original complaint, but the FAA already has a regulation about the maximum time it can take to evacuate a plane (and therefore a limit on the number of seats per door on the plane, effectively). This hits the airlines with no first class cabin hardest, as they actually can't pack the entire 737 full of their standard economy seat.
[+] [-] killedbydeath|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manyxcxi|8 years ago|reply
I'm 6'4" and 280lbs- I'd like more length AND width so I pony up the extra $80-150 for whatever version of the economy plus exists on that carrier. I've also found that certain carrier's regular ol' economy are just fine. Delta, Southwest and Alaska routes with the newer generation of plane cabins fit me perfectly adequately. My knees are right up to the seat back in front of me but not IN the seat back in front of me.
I don't bargain shop for my flights at all beside sanity checking the route prices. I'll pretty much do anything to avoid connections, and I refuse to fly United or any budget airline besides Southwest, regardless of price.
I use Alaska as much as possible (live on the west coast), and Delta when I'm going to the east coast or to Europe (they partner with KLM).
I've got status on both so I get all kinds of perks, and the service on Alaska, Delta, and Southwest are about as good as you're going to get in the US (at least once you get some status).
I'll reluctantly fly American if they're the only suitable option for my schedule or are insanely cheaper, but I find that my three first choices generally cover the day sufficiently enough to make it work.
I'm not fond of the SWA cattle call, but I've found their seats to be decently sized, their staff to be human and helpful within their power, and their focus on not nickel and diming is a breathe of fresh air.
[+] [-] GordonS|8 years ago|reply
True, but there is generally a big increase in price. Premium Economy is generally twice the price of Economy. Regulations to push up the Economy seat pitch to a safe level would increase prices for Economy tickets, but given the small size difference, the price increase should be rather modest.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] JoshTriplett|8 years ago|reply
Virgin is quite good; Southwest is terrible. They're known for cost, not for service. Their lack of assigned seating is one of many manifestations of that, and it's the primary reason I never fly Southwest.
[+] [-] SilasX|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tacostakohashi|8 years ago|reply
I think airline travel provides one of the clearest examples of the big different between what people say they want (legroom, good quality food, friendly service), and what they will actually want / will pay for (cheap seats).
Let's not forget, premium economy, business class, first class, private jets are all available in this market for people that actually want large and comfortable seats and are willing to pay more for it.
[+] [-] concede_pluto|8 years ago|reply
If instead I could get elbow room and still have something to read, that might be worthwhile.
[+] [-] true_religion|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] valuearb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bogomipz|8 years ago|reply
Wait, so because occasionally there are routes with excess capacity this means there is sufficient competition? You seem to have confused the concept of demand competition for some reason. They are orthogonal although related concepts. Airlines having "fire sales" on fares is also not very common. Airlines have adopted a practice called "capacity discipline" which is industry speak for limiting both the number of seats and flights to a destination so as to increase the ticket price[1].
Also it doesn't seem like you are at all aware of the amount of consolidation that has gone on in the industry in the last decade, four major airlines control 80% of the market[2]. Is that your idea of sufficient competition? And there are also many instance where one or more of those 4 don't actually have a direct flight option to your particular destination.
>"Consumers could be flying airlines like Southwest and Virgin. The fact that they instead choose to fly on airlines like Frontier and Spirit shows that they don't actually care to spend the extra money to have reasonable seats or service."
What a bunch of nonsense straw man BS this claim is - because there is a segment of the market that selects predominantly on price means that all consumers don't care? That is beyond absurd.
>"I especially have to scoff at tech workers, who don't lack the money to make their travel experience more pleasant, but still take redeyes to save money and then complain about how much they hate travelling."
Most people I know take red eyes when there is no other choice, examples are an interview or late meeting on the opposite coast. It's also really odd that you believe that everyone who is a "tech worker" is by definition well off financially. There is no shortage of "tech workers" who are between jobs, starting a company and don't yet have income, free lancers, recent grads with student loan debt etc. Odder still is that fact that you have made blanket assumption about people based on their industry and then have chosen to "scoff" at them based on own your own ridiculous assumption.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/business/airline-discipli...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/business/energy-environme...
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zaroth|8 years ago|reply
When credit card companies started tweaking terms and conditions to make their cards more and more hostile to consumers, it's hard to be the company that still offers the "right" terms (e.g. Payments above the minimum apply to the highest interest balances first) when most consumers don't even understand what I just wrote.
Similar with airline shopping, seat pitch just isn't visible enough, and even if it was right there next to the price, do most shoppers understand what 28" pitch really means?
A perfectly functioning free market relies on perfect information available to the consumer. Today, we get a price and (usually) a brand name and that's about it. So competition is almost entirely on price.
In cases like these, it benefits everyone to make some regulations setting reasonable ground rules. Freeing airlines from having to compete against 28" seat pitch is like freeing credit card companies from having to compete against predatory terms and conditions.
Yes of course this has an impact on the bottom line. It would marginally increase the cost of tickets the same way the CARD Act made it less profitable to issue cards to certain people, and the same way airbags make cars more expensive.
There are other practices I disdain, like charging extra for a seat assignment or a boarding pass, but those are more visible when buying the ticket and I can more easily avoid it.
I do think if we could get much better and clear labeling on the differences between available seats (pitch, width, recline, power, screen, entertainment, food) it would help a lot. But airline shopping is already very painful, data overload is a real problem.
[+] [-] ilyanep|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|8 years ago|reply
At some point, ya gotta have a reasonable amount of faith and let'em learn to fish. There are, of course, exceptions. Safety comes to mind.
Also, if the government has to spend time and energy poking into the minor and the minutiae there won't be anything left for the big real problems that actually require gov intervention. Is that not what we see today? A gov too often bogged down in bullshit. We debated the size of gov when we should focus on role and quality. Geez. We can't even get the scope of the discussion correct.
Gov, like so many things, is a limited resource. We should use it sparingly and wisely. My personal sense is that is not the case. We throw it at everything. Even though it isn't working out well :(
[+] [-] jccalhoun|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justboxing|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cordite|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phreeza|8 years ago|reply
Google seems to have a good intermediate policy where you can keep money you save on one trip and use it for upgrades on future travel.
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|8 years ago|reply
Simultaneously, most Westerns consider air travel a right. It's not a proper holiday unless a plane is involved. I'd be curious to know how much air travel is necessary, and how much is simply a choice. I suspect it's the ladder, though the market certainly acts like it's the former.
Long to short, if it we're THAT bad (over a 3+ hr flight), less people would fly. That's not the case, is it?
p.s. I think when you factor in body size, the seats are even more proportionally small. But that too is often a choice. Moral of the story? Human make bad choices. Not to worry i'll refrain from making a comment about politics :)
[+] [-] jeffdavis|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Idontagree|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Retra|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GordonS|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phreeza|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laydn|8 years ago|reply
My napkin math tells me if you remove two rows of seats from an all-economy 737, every remaining seat would get an extra 2.5-3 inches of legroom, which is significant.
I wonder how much revenue would this change cost to a major airline.
[+] [-] tacostakohashi|8 years ago|reply
Or, in absolute terms - 2 rows = 12 seats, so if you imagine $100 fares, with a few flights per day, you could easily be looking at 5 or 10 thousand dollars a plane per day.
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|8 years ago|reply
p.s. less passengers also means less fuel, less employees (to some extent), etc. That said, the number of flights, especially on certain routes, has to be limited. At that point the only way up and out is to maximize bodies on the plane. Ya can't add more flights.
[+] [-] danellis|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] valuearb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tacostakohashi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zelmor|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GordonS|8 years ago|reply
I have to fly long haul in economy with work (who won't pay for anything else), so my choice is either several hours of pain and discomfort, or to pay a large sum to upgrade myself - if the fare is even upgradable. Bring on the regulation!
[+] [-] chiph|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|8 years ago|reply
People are only getting taller, but leg room is deceasing.
My hope would be to see regulation require more leg room for long haul routes.
[+] [-] jtbayly|8 years ago|reply
I hope that was an intentional pun. Leg room is vanishingly small these days, but I'm not so sure it's entirely gone. ;)
[+] [-] angelic|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jeffdavis|8 years ago|reply
This is the same thing. People are uncofortable, and they want to frame it as a safety issue.
[+] [-] GordonS|8 years ago|reply
Eh... no. Yes, smoking was annoying and unpleasant for a lot of people, but 2nd hand smoke is absolutely a safety issue.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] whiddershins|8 years ago|reply
https://slate.janrainsso.com//static/server.html?origin=http...
[+] [-] dpatrick86|8 years ago|reply