What about now? Is there any airline that has decent seats? If not, I'll be sticking to surface travel for the forseeable future.

What about the much vaunted JetBlue? Is their "we love you too" thing pure hype?

Okay, I want these new seats.

All the people demanding that seats be disabled from reclining the approximately two inches any of them decline anymore are sentencing me to hunched shoulders, and the attending backache, the whole flight. I'm only 5'8" and not obese but there isn't enough side-to-side shoulder room, and even if it weren't impossible to be comfortable sitting ramrod-straight when someone isn't rammed into your shoulders, it's really cruddy to have to decide whether to literally rub shoulders with some stranger for four hours or stay hunched. Yet I know the two inches back away from that guy's shoulders is probably making the guy behind me even more miserable.

Thus we're all made to resent each other....

The most attractive aspect of the Thompson seat redesign is the staggering of shoulders and elbows so that one passenger cannot "overflow" their personal space into another. Ever been lucky to get a window seat, and then at the last minute the 260 pound fella who had to run all the way through the airport crams into the middle seat next to you for the coast-to-coast flight? The biggest downside of economy flying is indeed lack of personal space. If you paid $300 for a cubic meter of real estate, why should somebody else get to eat up $50 of it?

It's clear the airlines will no longer take care of us. We have to look to others

FOOD: ability to order take-out from one of the airport food services when you're ordering your airline ticket.

READING: On-board library of books, magazines, perhaps even DVDs (even if it comes from the passengers)

ETHERNET: An ability to connect with others on the airplane through an airplane ethernet; perhaps we could chat, watch movies together, socialize (now that the 747s no longer have a lounge and bar). But you wouldn't necessarily have to listen to the person next to you!

You never know what the kid on that plane was going through. I've been in planes with newly adopted kids who don't speak the language of their recently acquired parents. I've watched my way-too-over-tired kids struggle not to be rude and cranky mid-day on domestic flights when it's 2 am by their internal clock and they can't manage to sleep in the uncomfortable airline seats. I've seen kids who just said good-bye to Mom and are off for months with barely-known Dad.

Even good parents have relatively few options for dealing with a temper tantrum on a plane. You can ignore it and cringe at the thought of your fellow passengers. You can't give the kid a time out. You can't even spank the kid in front of your fellow passengers. It's hard to distract the kid.

Believe me, as a parent who's clocked a hell of a lot of hours flying with kids, no one is made more miserable by a screaming kid than the parents.

My hearing is down 70% since that!

Funny you should mention hearing loss...

I was on a JetBlue flight to Oakland once and in the row directly next to me a kid who was *way* too old to be behaving like that in public (probably 7 or so) was throwing the loudest tantrum I have ever heard. I mean just screaming, howling, wailing, absolutely roaring at the top of his lungs and ALL the flight attendants (poor things, they all had this wild-eyed frantic look about them) were trying to figure out how to stop him crying. They waved magic wands or something and conjured crayons, paper, animal crackers, drinks, everything out of thin air and finally managed to settle him down a little bit, about 20 minutes into the flight.

The punchline? Both of his parents were deaf. DEAF! I shit you not, they sat there sort of idly trying to get him to calm down but not making a huge fuss out of it why? BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T FUCKING HEAR HOW AWFUL IT WAS!!!

It is 8:45 AM in Taipei, Taiwan (ROC). I'm sitting in my hotel room as I write this. Scheduled for a 11:00 PM flt to SFO tonight and I can clearly say your article hasn't helped me a bit in reducing the pre-flying anxieties. The very idea that I'm going to be couped up for 11:10 minutes in the economy class seats you described is so scary, even for a seasoned flier like me. But, I will live to tell a tale for another day.

Start strictly enforcing the carry-on size limit. I fly 100,000+ miles a year on business, and NOTHING makes me crazier than to see people hogging the overhead compartment with stuff that quite clearly wouldn't fit into the size-checking bin at the gate. Recently I got stuck on a completely full flight from LGA to ATL having to put my rather small laptop case under the seat reducing my footspace, (a not-inconsiderable thing when you wear size 14 shoes) so as to make room for some inconsiderate moron who somehow escaped the gate agent's attention while bringing on at least three shopping bags, each of which were about the size of a max-legal-size carry-on.

Oh, speaking of the max-legal-size rollaboard carry-ons, ubiquitous among business travelers such as myself: Generally speaking, when they're "expanded", they're not carry-ons anymore, people.

Oh, and make sure there is real food available (for purchase is fine by me) on every flight longer than two hours or so. 2 weeks ago I rode on an ATL-SFO flight that had no actual food available - the best I could get was a three-dollar can of Pringles.

ctbland wrote:

Seat the salesmen with other salesmen, the teachers and academics together, the doctors together, the lawyers together, etc.

THAT is a boffo idea, if the airlines could make it work. Personally, unless I am traveling with wifey - I detest being stuck next to some dork salesman, or worse - a pie-eyed, religious fanatic trying to press her pamphlets and "salvation" recipes into my mitts. I just feel like popping her upside the head.

Keep all these type together, segregated from the rest of us. Then the religous bozos can proseltyze to each other to their heart's content and leave me alone. The salemen can make their pitches to each other, and we (solar or physics researchers) can converse on the latest updates, research....OR ...just read whatever papers we brought with us.

As for kids, they need to make a noise-proof bubble area in the rear of the plane and keep all the rug rats there. Maybe give 'em a valium and let them sleep and their parents can visit them and burp them every twenty mins. or so.

Worst experience I ever had was flying from Atlanta to Fort Myers in 1986 and some squallering little mouth behind me would not stop. At least 190 decibels with each scream and his clueless Momma didn't know whether to shit or go blind. Next time, retire the twerp to a sound proof cube or leave him with a sitter!

My hearing is down 70% since that!