Originally Posted by
halls120
I have flown more than 1.5m miles in my lifetime, and I know what I value and what I don't. I don't care about window placements, because I prefer the aisle seat. When I choose a flight, I assume that I'm going to have a seat mate. I'm not tall, so seat pitch is largely irrelevant. I choose the sUA IPTE seat when I want to sleep because it is the most comfortable C seat out there. I'll go with the sCO C seat if I'm not sleeping because it has more storage space and room to work. How is that "illogical?"
Well you should care about a particular window seat, because it can greatly affect your room in the aisle. Case in point was recently when I flew AA's 3-4-3 777. I had my usual window, and the group of three seats was full (I suspect the aisle seat guy picked the wrong row, but that's beside the point). Since I didn't know how the windows were aligned, my row's window seat aligned with the protruding middle of the wall panel and not the window itself. This restricted my shoulder room greatly and made the configuration much tighter than it could have been one row away. This meant I encroached into the middle seat passenger, and they didn't have all the room possible. And that in turn meant the aisle seat person didn't have as much room as possible.
You see, that's one reason why short-sighted decisions are easily made when an entire aircraft is written off because of a very small difference in measured room in one area that determines comfort. You can book that half inch more and easily end up with much less room.
Originally Posted by
halls120
I don't fly those carriers. I primarily fly AA, AF, BA, DL, LH, SK and UA. And yes, most long haul carriers don't offer PE. Which is why I don't fly those carriers unless they are the only option available for where I need to be. That said, there is hardly anywhere I need to go long haul that isn't served by one of the above. Six of them have a true PE. One doesn't. Those are facts, no matter how inconvenient they might be to you.
Doesn't matter that you don't fly them. You were saying that UA virtually stood alone among major carriers in not offering PE. That's not true, unless your definition of a major airline is wildly different than generally accepted.
Originally Posted by
spin88
If airlines were just addressing one set of buyers, then you would be right. But that was actually the failing of MRTC. Certain travelers were attracted by it (like they were by E+) but a large number of travelers are price sensitive. Any extra premium AA got was overwhelmed by the extra cost.
You just explained why the marketplace has over and over voted in favor of less room for less price. Voluntarily giving passengers more room in an attempt to maximize revenue through higher yield has failed time and time again.
You're in the minority. You can complain over and over and give out stat after stat, but
every long-term sustaining airline out there knows that the goal for maximizing profit is generally to cram as many people as possible into a given amount of space.
Hold up one of your fingers and study it's width. It likely can even be your pinky. You just admitting that internationally you're going to give up on an entire airline for less than that amount of space. Let that sink in for a while.