Originally Posted by
tomvancouver
I was thinking about this last week while on a widebody in J as I watched a couple trying to chat over it.
Why couldn't they make the divider work? It could be left in the default (up) position, but lowered when a couple wanted to. There's probably a reason behind the decision, but it would be nice to know it is evidence based rather than some random committee decision one day way back.
If I had to guess, I would say cost. Anything that moves will be more expensive, require more maintenance, will be more prone to breakage and will be more complex to certify than a static sheet of plastic.