The Lev

Jumper Jack, your argument would hold more water for me if you were to say that "AC does partially address this situation by offering preferred seats but unless you book months in advance, they are all taken", however I think we both know the reality is that many preferred seats go unsold. That should speak volumes about people's willingness to pay for space/health/safety.

You may not like the fact that the armrest doesn't go up on bulkhead seats, but if you are tall (and not obese), they do offer a solution. If you are tall and obese, respectfully, do everyone a favour and pay the extra for PY if you want to travel globally.

Jumper Jack

The Lev, your response holds zero "water" for me , unfortunately. :P

I just checked my BMI and I am not "Obese". I am quite tall, however, so i guess sure, you could spin it into I am obese if I am not tall.
Respectfully. Although yes I am in the overweight category, there are 14 million canadians over the age of 18 who have self reported to be in the category. 54% to be exact.
I am also going to be frank, I used to be Obese but I have since lost 30-35lbs to get far from that zone.

I think the true reality that they are unsold is that, they make an already extremely narrow seat even narrower.

The argument is quite simple, is there real preferred seats on AC's 777 similar to those offered by every other NA legacy carrier who does Ultra Long Hauls?
YES or NO or Kindof or whatever the "spin" is
Step 1: Open Excel
Step 2 :Enter answer in A1
Step 3: Enter the following formula in any cell, for example: A2
=IF(A1="YES","Argument Valid", "Argument Invalid")

Keep saying these are options does not make true for more than half of the Canadians.
I can keep repeating AC's marketing who claims their new cabin is "Comfortable and Contemporary" But that does not make it true.

I really wanted to post the explain gravity to a chicken veep scene, too bad it has one f word, lol, perfectly explains how I feel right now.

jasdou

The issue I have with some posts here is when people say that a J seat exposes you to the same risk of suffering from DVT as a Y seat. Given that DVT can often be prevented by stretching, moving around the cabin, etc, I fail to see how somebody seated in a window seat in row 61 of a 77W has as much liberty as somebody seated in seat 2A. I would also like to point out with 398 Y passengers, it could quickly get crowded in the aisles and galley area if everyone was actually getting up every hour to stretch.

You can stretch quite easily while remaining in your pod. Heck, you can even do it lying flat if you want. But you cannot do that in a HD-configured Y seat.

Dollars2Donuts

So.....you believe that you should be able to move around and stretch in every seat in an airplane? It sounds like you think everyone should have a pod? Come now.

jasdou

That is not what I said at all. The point of my post is that no, a J seat and a Y seat cannot be considered equivalent when it comes to risk of DVT as the pod allows the possibility of getting up and stretching much more easily than a Y seat.

And yes, I believe everyone should be able to get up from their seat and move around the cabin. You know, just in case you need to evacuate or simply go to the lav.

montezume

Middle eastern airlines offer a place to pray on their flights in all classes of service. That would be a perfect place to go and stretch. Doesn't require a pod.

mapleg

Air Canada offers that in some fashion. Many pray before entering the washroom that it will be clean and the air breathable.

As always, not all prayers are answered.

Mauricio23

I am with Jumper Jack here. On XM-standard planes, preferred seats are in fact superior. On the now HD standard across the widebody fleet, preferred seats are either equivalent or inferior to regular ones. The reason is that the main sources of discomfort in these seats are width (too narrow) and cushion design (too short, putting pressure on your thighs). Pitch comes in a distant third. A preferred seat's is still uncomfortable to sit on, and is even narrower than a regular seat. I regularly paid for preferred seats in XM Y. Now, when I fly with my kids, I take the non preferred seats in order to create more space by raising the armrest. When I fly alone, I pay for PY if reasonably priced, or fly a different carrier.

What Air Canada is missing is a solution a la main cabin extra - 9 across instead of 10.

montezume

The solution is 11 across

payam81

Majority of Canadians don't even know there are differences between Y seats of different airlines.

They just fly the lowest possible fare. This is why charters do so well in this country.

All that said, you can blame Ben Smith for most of the HD idea. He might lack academic qualification but his years in the Vacataion and TA industry has him understand Canadian consumer habits quite well.

You cannot compare AC to the big three and neither can you compare US and Canadian markets.

At the end of the day AC has an obligation to shareholders to maximize $ and the HD config has helped bring in more revenue, whether we like it or not. Whether or not this will hurt them in the long run remaina to be seen...

superangrypenguin

You answered your own question in your own post, as far as I can tell.

Yeah, there is a cabin where it's better than 10 across. PY, or J.

Kendryk

Removed.

Mauricio23

If you read my post, you will see it contains no questions, and provides no answers. It states facts. Now your contribution is?

yulred

Adam.Smith - what a fun post. A few observations:

On comfort

Yes, it's about comfort. It always was about comfort. That said, it's not about some abstract, extreme concept of comfort; it's about reasonable/acceptable levels of comfort. Or, by the same token, a refusal to tolerate unacceptable levels of discomfort. Nobody expects J levels of comfort at Y prices. At the same time, nobody expects to be painfully contorted for long periods of time either. The evidence suggests that we are reaching the 'unacceptable' threshold for discomfort.

- The most obvious evidence is the recent vote that took place in the bastion of free market principles. The U.S. Senate vote wasn't just notable for the fact that 42 of 96 elected senators voted for it, but for the fact that it took place at all. When that many senators vote for a measure that wasn't even conceivable a decade ago...something significant is afoot.

On Regulation

- Regulation is not (nor has it ever been) limited to being a tool to only address scientifically proven problems. It is also a means for society to set standards. There is no scientific rationale for bilingual policies, or banning or not banning religious apparel or symbols. Certain types of behaviour are acceptable (even protected) and certain types of behaviour aren't (even targeted).

- Companies are not exempt from these behavioural standards. They might think they are, but their very existence is at the discretion of society through elected governments. They do not have a right to exist, let alone the right to operate however they want to. They can't, for example, point at 'cheap' consumers as a rationale for flouting minimum wage requirements.

- So yes, this is about comfort. It's about the public saying that the airlines behaviour isn't acceptable and needs to be checked. We're not talking about an unreasonable public either. We're talking about a public that is largely tolerant of nickel and diming and the significant deterioration in service standards and the travel experience. These include bag fees that have nothing to do with the cost of handling a bag, with the added benefit of security line misery and miserable boarding experiences. They've even accepted seat selection fees that charge money for a service that costs airlines close to nothing to provide. How many votes have we seen about regulating those nuisances? These tight seats, however, appear to be one step too far.

- On the specific case of DVT, it's worth pointing out that regulation is not justified only on the grounds of sole causality. Contributory factors that increase the likelihood of a severe outcome are eligible for regulation as well. I don't think it would be a stretch to suggest that DVT and tight seating on 10-14 hour flights would be eligible under this criteria.

- That said, there's no point having Canada regulate this. For it to be applied in any meaningful way, U.S. action is necessary. Granted, with the U.S. population trending in a certain direction on size...things may get interesting. If the EU gets in on it, well, Canadian airlines won't have a choice.

On 'choice'

- Comparing flying to the bare essentials of life is an exercise in pointlessness. It may make sense if we embrace the notion that a Neanderthal-esque hunter-gatherer existence is acceptable, and the only essentials are food, shelter and water, but we're in the 21st century. Flying is just another part of day-to-day life that can be undertaken for any number of reasons, some discretionary and some not. At the end of the day, flying is a mode of transportation like any other mode of transportation, in a world in which transportation is a fundamental part of the well-being of a nation and the optimal functioning of an economy.

- I can understand why an airline or its employees might characterize flying as a choice in the context of this debate; it's a simple way of camouflaging the issue as a discretionary luxury that people chose to participate in, thereby exempting it from general societal standards. However, I doubt any reasonable person is going to buy that argument in the 21st century. Globalization necessitates movement. People who don't necessarily want to travel, often have to. They should switch jobs, you say? With 7% unemployment, not to mention the generally stagnant and mediocre job market, it's a prescription that's too disconnected from reality to be taken seriously.

- In any event, since I expect you will disagree, good luck convincing a BC MP that his flights across the country are optional, and that he could always change jobs if he didn't like it. Or drive to-and-from Ottawa every weekend. Or take the train. That should help avoid regulation.

- But is flying a necessity? Well, let's frame it this way: what would the economy look like without air travel? What would happen if AC shut down for a week? I don't know, but I know the government was sufficiently concerned about it to stop it from happening.

On 'cheapness'

- I'm not sure I'm familiar with the economic concept of cheapness. I've heard it used colloquially to describe what many here consider to be irrational behaviour. It strikes me as being at odds with a fundamental assumption in economics - that humans are rational actors. Are we to assume now that people will only buy the cheapest thing? Should everybody other than Walmart might as well shut down?

- After all, it seems odd to me that Canadians who are willing to pay top dollar on all kinds of discretionary items (we don't all dress from Walmart, and Bose/Tumi - brandishing folk are visible in Y on just about every AC flight), just aren't willing to give airlines more than they have to. What makes discretionary spenders so overwhelmingly stingy with airlines? I would argue that it takes two to tango. Airlines have gutted the value proposition in their quest to squeeze an extra dime out that the distrust has set in. But really, who knows?

- This notion that airlines will provide better seats if people folk more money over doesn't really make sense to me either. Squeezing more seats into a confined space strikes me as a more efficient and risk-mitigating approach. More money in good times, lower losses during bad times. High-densification is inherently sensible. Until, of course, you overdo it.

Question is: what happens when airlines take it too far? What happens when airlines bite the hand that feeds them.

IMHO - regulation becomes a real possibility. There may be many more rounds of this type of coverage before anything, but it seems to me that the tide is flowing in a direction that might not end well for airlines.

Handcake

This is why I pay extra for the emergency exit seats. If the flight I usually fly had PY I'd just pay for that. J can be really just too expensive. I'd rather fly PY on another airline than J when it is so expensive with AC on international routes.