[rconti]

My dislike for single aisle aircraft isn't about cabin pressure or the "impression of a wider open space". It's about the fact that it is ACTUALLY cramped, and the _one_ aisle will be blocked for most of the flight.

In a typical single aisle airplane, sitting in coach, you're expected to use the restroom "in your cabin" which is at the rear. If you're sitting anywhere _except_ the rear, your access to the restroom will be blocked for a significant portion of shorter flights by food/bev carts.

By contrast, on a widebody, there are restrooms front and rear. If your access to one is blocked, you can go the other way, and you can _also_ use the front or rear to access the _other_ aisle. It's the difference between feeling totally confined versus freedom to move about (other than having to hassle any passengers between yourself and the aisle).

I admit, with limited cabin service in economy, on a longer flight, the blocked aisle isn't such an issue -- but on the typical 1.5-3h narrowbody flight, the food/bev service does seem to be a significant obstruction.

I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+. Airlines are slowly expanding premium cabins, and I'd be hopeful that narrowbodies like this permit further growth, but the demand seems to be increasing faster than the supply, so the prices are still crazy.

[nexus7556]

The new, larger narrowbodies are adding a lav at the front of economy which helps with this. https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/company/aircraft/boeing-737...

[tedd4u]

True, but it's not all roses. If you like to sit at the front of economy to exit as fast as possible when arriving, you will be sitting next to a heavily-used lav which is not enjoyable. You have to sit 4-6 rows back from the lav to avoid the annoyance.

[inigyou]

There will always be good seats and bad seats. They can't all be good seats.

[qazxcvbnmlp]

Apparently paying for an upgrade to a nicer cabin isnt an option either.

[tuna74]

"I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+. "

If you look at pictures it seems like the lie-flat seats take up roughly 6x the space of what the economy seats take up.

[darknavi]

New Zealand allows you to book three seats in a row and covert it to a bed which seems like a nice alternative.

[throwaway2037]

I checked the prices. To be clear, I assume that we are talking about the "Economy Skycouch" programme. [1] Its better than just three economy sets because they lay down a small mattress that fills the whole seat area. It looks much more comfortable that trying to sleep across three regular economy seats! It looks like the prices are about 50-100% higher. That looks pretty reasonable to me, considering it is cheaper than buying the three economy seats. I wonder what the business analysis looked like for this offering. I guess they have some long-haul flights with low load factor, so they are looking to sell the empty seats and harvest some revenue.

[1] https://www.airnewzealand.co.jp/economy-skycouch

[throwaway2037]

    > I'm someone who would happily pay up for a lie-flat more frequently if it was priced at 2-3x a regular ticket rather than 5x+.

Can you give a city pair where economy->business upgrade costs 5x? The industry standard is about 4x for direct flights and slights less for flights with a single stopover, e.g., fly Hongkong to London with a Middle East carrier.

[MForster]

MUC -> SFO direct for 10 days in August: consistently 682$ in economy. Nothing under 5k$ in business, some days considerably more expensive.

[throwaway2037]

I confirm it on Google flights. Wild. Lufthansa and United should add more business class seats on those flights! What is the primary demand for these biz class seats between these cities? Are big auto manufs flying to Silicon Valley to meet with tech companies?

[MForster]

I suspect it's more the tech companies themselves. For example, Google has a sizable office in Munich. I'm not sure if BMW would let most of their employees travel business class...

[tristor]

Companies really ought to pay for business class on transatlantic and transoceanic flights because of well-founded research showing that a seated position without movement for long periods of time creates a risk for DVT/stroke and that it interrupts sleep which has poor health effects. Unfortunately there's no legal mandate to require it, but a lot of European companies have rules for flights where a single leg is over 6 hours or over 8 hours that triggers an allowance for business class. I'm unsure about BMW, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do this.