NYP and Fox News are great for allowing comments. Good way to get honest opinions.
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Just skimming the comments section, I happen to agree with quite a few of them. Words like âaccountabilityâ, âself controlâ and plus-sized influencer wanting airline seating pricing to be run similarly to our how our health care system is run.
Well, I might agree to one of those two 
However, it is likely that most people would lose weight if they had to subsist on airline economy class meals and snacks, and did not drink any of the sugary beverages, even though exercise opportunities are restricted in an airplane.
I can do a whole post on how itâs almost impossible to get a meal at the airport/ on a plane if you are gluten and dairy free. Basically, you bring your own, or you starve. Works for me on the way there, but coming home can be really dicey.
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Airlines are private businesses. The FAA doesnât set ticket prices or policies. If airlines want to charge for pets, they can do that. If you need O2 while in flight, they can charge you to turn it on over your seat even though that is a medical condition. Unaccompanied minor? There is a charge. A blind person needs a companion? Pay for the extra seat. They want to charge 10x as much for first class, they can. If it were a fundamental right to be able to fly, there would be government programs to pay for tickets for low income people and those programs could pay for the second seat. Would we allow that program to pay for vacations or pleasure trips or only for medical or emergency trips? Iâm guessing just the latter.
I do think the FAA should step in and say if the person canât get down the aisle they shouldnât get to fly at all for safety reason. If they can get down the aisle but couldnât in an emergency, they should be required to sit in a window seat and pay for the middle seat so as not to block someone in the row.
No one is guaranteed to be able to fly at a certain price or really to fly at all if they canât afford the price. No one is guaranteed non-stop flights. No one is guaranteed to fly at 9 am or return home by 6 pm, and you often have to pay extra if you want the premium travel times.
Itâs a business, not a charity.
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Yup. I was thinking how so many people in my town never have flown before. Cost is a huge factor. Even in my office of 10 people who are better off than our average citizen here, only 4 of us have flown at least once in the last 5 years. And two of those flew once - the only time Iâve ever known them to fly in the last 20. Iâm the big traveler because Iâve averaged 1-2x year over the last 10 years.
But before that, we just didnât fly. When you live in a low cost of living area and your salaries match that cost, a short economy flight to nowhere special for a family of 4 costs 1-2x your mortgage. Forget anywhere long distance. Itâs just not doable. And first/business class? lol. Yeah. Not happening.
So if airlines have to configure the seats and start charging a lot more to cover that configuration, itâs going to price a whole lot more people out of flying altogether.
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I flew Lufthansa once when they had that insane policy, never again!
I am probably 6â0" â was taller but have been shrinking â and had a knee injury and always need to have room for my leg, so I try to only sit in aisle seats. My shoulders are reasonably wide so I am bumping right up to the edge of a male passenger in the adjacent seat â .
Sitting next to plus-size passengers is really unpleasant if they overflow into my seat, because there is not much room left over.
I usually fly extra leg room on Jet Blue/Premium Economy seats or F domestically. Extra leg room seats do not give you wider seats. PE doesnât either usually, just more leg room, I donât think. So they donât buy a way out of the plus-size neighbor.
I usually fly business, F or PE internationally. All but PE give ample space side to side.
This author claims the seats arenât shrinking but legroom is another story.
I donât think asking someone who needs 2 seats bc they canât fit in one to pay for 2 seats is unfair. If youâre occupying the space of 2 seats thatâs one seat another paying passenger canât purchase.
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Yes, I mentioned above that 737s have been used for decades with 3-3 seating, so changing seat width is unlikely.
But passengers have been getting wider over those decades, so it may seem like the seats are ânarrowerâ.
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Very true!
Actually, they do seem narrower. Iâm about the same size and weight for the past 50+ years but notice when the seats used to allow me to comfortably rest my shoulders on the seat, itâs getting a lot more crowded on the seat and I can see how folks with broader shoulders can be quite uncomfortable. I have sat beside fit folks with broader shoulders and they were uncomfortable due to the narrow width of the seat so they tried to twist their torso so as not to intrude too much on the people sitting beside them on the plane. Thats pretty miserable for 5+ hour flights.
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Airline seats and distances between them have gotten smaller and smaller while people have gotten larger and larger, and I donât even mean overweight. Itâs inhumane to transport people like this. Especially wheelchair passengers, who should be allowed to sit in their chair on board, because to put them in a small and extremely hard seat is basically torture, which leads to injury. When they arrive at their destination, their chair that was in the hold, ends up having been broken. I would like to see some laws on this issue.
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JetBlue doesnât offer Premium Economy seats, because it doesnât fly widebody jets. It offers extra legroom seats (which JetBlue calls âEven More Spaceâ seats), but theyâre really Economy Plus seats (not Premium Economy). The same is true with other âmostly domesticâ airlines such as Alaska. The airlines (purposely?) use their own confusing and different terminologies to name their own different economy classes, but true Premium Economy seats are only available on widebody jets (with twin aisles).
It depends on the type of planes. On narrowbody jets (with single aisle) such as Boeing 737s, seat width hasnât changed much. But on widebody jets, they have. Most airlines now squeeze 10 seats (instead of 9) in row on a Boeing 777 and 9 seats (instead of 8) on a Boeing 787, for example. In the Premium Economy section/cabin on those same widebody jets, airlines typically install 1 or 2 fewer seats in a row (compared to regular economy), so theyâre wider than regular economy seats.
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Iâm Mosaic on JetBlue and typically get the extra leg room seats (even more space). I often fly Economy Plus on other airlines domestically (which I was calling Premium Economy). But PE on Delta does not give wider seats if I remember correctly. What about United? And I donât think PE on BA to London gives wider seats. Just more leg room and better meals. My point was merely that the slight upgrade to EMS or what I was calling PE does not get you wider seats, just more legroom. So, paying for that wonât help you with your plus-sized neighbor.
My recollection is that within Europe, BA and LH block off middle seats business class. So you get 1.5 times the width. This does actually help with the plus-sized neighbor, but is otherwise not a particularly upgraded experience.
Delta calls its Premium Economy seats âPremium Selectâ. They are wider:
The same with BA (which is called âWorld Traveller Plusâ):
Youâre right about intra-European flights. They (except Turkish Airlines, I believe) donât have any special seats on those routes.
Airline seats have to be able to handle 16Gs of load before giving way in an accident.
How exactly do you propose meeting that requirement with a person in a wheelchair in the cabin?
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Delta keeps changing what they call their seats. Economy comfort is now comfort plus. Am guessing that premium select might be the old business class.
Which becomes harder these days on certain routes. Otherwise you book a presumedly United or Air Canada ticket, yet end up on a Lufthansa-operated flight (which you might even enjoy):
https://www.lufthansa.com/us/en/local-page/codeshare-partners