Originally Posted by
hyperspace
I would argue it's not "another" person singular, but most of the cabin, on a long flight, is either full out sleeping, or just resting, or watching a movie or reading a book. On a long flight, I doubt the majority wants to do any of those activity in a bright cabin.
So it's still the desire of one person by the window wanting to do something that affects the larger cabin.
We're conflating a few things here. There are two broad options :
1) Some people on a long haul flight will want to look out of the window, many shades will be down. What this does is give some ambient daylight, on a daylight flight. So long as there's not direct sunlight flooding the cabin on one side, I think ambient light for some and the ability to look out of a window is fine.
2) Some people expect cinema levels of darkness, a wholly blacked out cabin with no ambient (background, NOT direct) daylight. To me, that's wierd, I don't want to sit in total darkness at 11am.
Now most long haul flights I have been seem to manage option 1 quite well, a reasonably small minority have shades up or semi open, the cabin has ambient light but is pretty much dark enough for everyone to see their screens or nap. It's the compelling need to control a daylight flight wholly into option 2 that's the issue, that's often staff just wanting an easy life. American carriers are noticeably more pro-darkness IMHO, some Asian carriers cannot comprehend why you'd even want a window, but until the B787, most UK carriers were more reasonable. I genuinely think carefully about the timings when booking B787 flights...