Let me be the first to offer eternal damnation to all of you who would rather pay $10 less in return for less space. I'm not a tall guy (6'1"), but I am crunched at the knee (i.e., no matter how I sit, the assbone to kneebone length exceeds the space between the seat in front of me and my seat) in the vast majority of coach cabins. The only alternative, it seems, is to pay hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, more for a J or F seat. Christ, people, must everything be WalMartized? Lowest price, quality be damned.

Lord, I hope that was a typo! 19 across? Aiiiiii!!!!

I can't say I've ever been on a 747 with that seating arrangement, and I hope with every bone of my body never to be! Perhaps you meant 10 across!

That said, as long as my feet aren't splayed 180 degrees apart from each other, with a box directly in front of my them keeping them in that position, and with boxes piled on my lap to the ceiling, I can always say that I've seen worse!

I'm an old fart, and my granddad came West on foot with his family and goods in a wagon. From St. Louis to San Francisco. Took three months, and some of the kids didn't make it. So, excuse me if I'm not all choked up about people being packed into an airliner seating area for a few short hours to get halfway around the world.

The longest commercial flight in the world is around 14 hours. There's several qualifying routes; the one I'm most familiar with is the Sydney-San Fransico run.

People complaining about being packed in like sardines, to use one of the least colourful metaphors I have heard, need to take a deep breath and do some comparisons.

Most of us spend 8 hours at work each day, most of that time in a chair. 14 hours is really not that long, and while the time goes by you are, literally, crossing half the world.

Or, if it helps, divide the time up:

* 3 hours will be spent getting fed (twice)

* 2 hours in the full take off and landing cycles

* 4-6 hours asleep, depending on how lucky you are

* Which means you've got to -- god forbid -- entertain yourself for between 3 and 5 hours.

Bring a book. Watch some crappy movies. Go over your presentation. Talk to your seatmates. Or all four.

And then it's over. And you're on the other side of the planet, and if you've flown north-south or vicky verka then it's the opposite season. Winter has become Summer!

Call me Pollyanna if you must, but flying is fun! Think positive. If all you think about is how cramped in you are -- then, frankly, you are cramped in.

And if you're complaining about legroom on a tiny little 6-8 hour hop, then unfortunately you'll have to oblige me by giving me a break...

hello Patrick, and happy 39th,

you say that most aircraft incidents are survivable. Let me ask this-- I know that the safety folks study major accidents to find out the cause; do they study the occasional major accidents in which there were a substantial number of survivors, to seek if any of the variables causing the lesser mortality rates are reproducible?

Just a comment on shannonr's assertion that the longest commercial flight is 14 hours in duration. Actually, there are longer ones. I refer to the EWR-SIN routing on Singapore Airlines for one which is clocked at an average of 19 hours. The route is flown with A-340-500s and I did it last year. You might want to check out the October 2004 issue of Airways magazine for a complete review.

I have had occasion to fly United's Economy Plus a few times, and I have been absolutely delighted with it. Five inches may not sound like a lot, but I always seem to have the bad luck to wind up seated behind someone who insists on reclining their seat allllll the way back for the entire duration of the flight. In Economy Plus, even when I'm seated in back of a full recliner, I still feel comfortable and not cramped and claustrophobic. On a four-hour flight from San Francisco to Chicago a couple weeks ago, I paid fifty bucks to upgrade to Economy Plus and was glad I did. I wish more airlines would emulate United in this respect; I know it'll make me more likely to fly United in the future. It's a nice alternative for those of us who can't afford to shell out several hundred extra dollars to sit in first class.

Gee Jim, that's quick a leap between two very different events. Way to go in making it all about you!

sorry mean't tp say "quite a leap"

Let me echo Blacknell's comment about leg room for tall passengers in coach. For people over 6' tall (I am 6'6") the concern is not about claustorphobia or feeling like a sardine. It's the difference between basic comfort and six to 12 hours of physical torture. The next time you're sitting in an airline seat, look at the metal supports for the tray table in the seat in front of you. Now imagine having those pressed into your knees for the duration of the flight. Your only hope of relief is sitting bolt upright and trying to squeeze your knees together for a few minutes. God forbid you should try and use the aisle for a little extra leg room (those attendants with the carts are merciless).

To those people of short stature who are giddy with delight when they've scored a seat in an exit row ... well, you'll recognize me by the scowl on my face as I pass you on my way to my own little torture device.

Am I imagining it, or have car manufacturers shown far more initiative with their $19,000 vehicles than airlines do with their chariots costing many millions? Anyone ever heard the term "cab forward"? I know there are accepted conventions to do with trays in certain places and so on, but c'mon, what's getting better again?

A few offhand ideas:

-- Cut into the overhead storage by five inches in order to lift us an astonishing five more inches up. We gain the storage back under our seats, and our legs can stretch out or at least down. Ta-DUM. More room.

-- When Subaru's arm rests were too short, they fixed the things for the next model year. Airliners have had awful armrests for my entire life. Maybe someone could do something about that. You think?

-- Perhaps some airline could think of a new process for handing out soda and pretzels that doesn't utterly clog the only aisles on a plane. Granted, people want their soda, but surely there is some way to improve this obnoxious process. Just make the attendants move around more. They couldn't like it any less than lugging the carts around, could they? With the space saved you could carry a second fridge on board in which to keep a few more cans.

-- This sounds silly, but cup holders. Ever notice, airline interior people, that people like those in their cars? Look around at the car designs and find those little goofy touches that satisfy people, and give us a few.

The essential convservatism behind things like seating us all forward doesn't have to prevent the tiniest improvements in our experiences as travelers. C'mon. If Chrysler can try, surely Boeing can too.