[Thiz]

Great idea.

At first, by reading the title, I thought it was about making flights more comfortable. I really would like to see planes where instead of selling 200 seats at $500 each, they sell 100 seats at $1000 with double leg room and bigger seats. Or even 50 mega seats at $2000 each.

First class seats go for 10k a pop which makes them really expensive only affordable by big corporations. So something in the middle may be a good thing to explore.

Can a group of entrepreneurs buy a plane an make a direct flight JFK-LAX with just 50 seats and still make a profit?

[danieltillett]

The airline industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world and they have tried everything that will make money. As much as you and I would love this I fear that there is no way to make money doing this the way the industry currently is set up.

Having said this I do think the airline industry has managed to get itself stuck in a non-optimal local maximum that could be broken out of with some intelligent regulation.

[josai]

All business-class planes (and airlines) have been extensively tested as an idea. They tend to only work on the longest routes (1).

I too try to get business class on anything above maybe 6 hours and certainly on overnight flights, but I think you'd have to be pretty rich to not flinch at spending 2x or 4x your normal fare just to sit in a larger seat for a couple of hours on a domestic flight.

(1) http://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/flying-with-us/business-li...

[cflee]

Singapore Airlines' all-business-class flights (Singapore to to Newark or Los Angeles) have been withdrawn at the end of 2013 [1], but probably also due to fuel consumption of the A340-500, not just due to the all-business-class yields not quite working out.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/singapore-air-to-en...

[kalleboo]

> First class seats go for 10k a pop which makes them really expensive only affordable by big corporations. So something in the middle may be a good thing to explore.

Most airlines have an "Economy Plus" type class nowadays, which is usually economy-style seating with more legroom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_economy

[clarkm]

A very low percentage of people in first class actually pay full price for it. Most people seated there are frequent flyers who were upgraded for free or travelers on award tickets.