Yep - we're living in the golden age of business class travel. Business class on every major international airline has some variation of a reverse herringbone lie-flat seat, which is the killer feature for paying for a premium seat in the first place (e.g. some privacy + lie flat seat).
Yet you have to resort to hacks like this [0] to find cheap business airfares. None of the flight search sites can find cheapest biz flights from continent to continent. Script below opens 40 tabs and with a bit of clicking I found 1900usd return flight aussie to europe...
There's also some weird bugs where economy class Malaysia Airlines leg would be inserted when searching for biz. Kiwi.com straight up renders 0 biz flights when using their continent-to-continent search.
I recently saved ~$4000 on a round trip business class ticket from the US to South America. Instead of departing from Denver, I departed from Newark. This was very strange as I was on United which is a hub in both cities. I guess United really wants people to check out their new Polaris lounges?
It seems like they should be able to pack more people into economy for long-haul flights, and make them more comfortable, by simply eliminating seats and replacing them with bed-pods. They'd be like little tubes you could crawl into and lie down in. They could have a monitor on the ceiling if you want to watch a movie, and otherwise you can just curl up and go to sleep (something that's usually very uncomfortable in an economy airline seat).
Sometimes I think the end-game for transportation is personal transportation pods that get docked into a self-driving-car/subway/train/ferry/airplane system. You'd load up your family pods with your favorite bedding/pillows/devices/books/toys before your trip, wheel them out to the curb, hop inside, and hail a Waymo. The car would arrive, dock with the pods, ferry you to the airport, scan you & your luggage for dangerous items on the way, and then drive straight out to the tarmac to load you into a plane. Plane takes off, gets to its destination, and then a small shuttle-tug drags your pods to the subway. They eventually offramp (without stopping) to another self-driving car, which pops the pods into an elevator and take you straight up to your hotel room. If you're asleep in the pod you could keep sleeping the whole way, otherwise you can unpack and have a real bed there, then hop into a seated family pod for sightseeing the next day.
It's like intermodal containers for people. For short-haul flights it could cut door-to-door travel time by 2/3, since so much of it is taken up by ground transportation, waiting, ticketing, waiting, security, waiting, rental car counters, and more waiting.
>Sometimes I think the end-game for transportation is personal transportation pods that get docked into a self-driving-car/subway/train/ferry/airplane system. You'd load up your family pods with your favorite bedding/pillows/devices/books/toys before your trip, wheel them out to the curb, hop inside, and hail a Waymo.
No. You seem to be ignoring basic physics: this pod would be huge, compared to the space currently occupied in a modern plane by your bodies and your luggage. Your idea would work if you're willing to pay 1st-class prices for airfare, maybe.
I was also thinking some advanced economy origami seats that fold out into 3 level bunk beds.
Apparently it's all about "safety" - all passengers are supposed to evacuate in 2 minutes or something. Apparently it's quite hard when you are in a pod or something.
I don't care about all the fancy stuff you get in biz, just wanna straighten my body (especially with 20 hour flights becoming a norm). Half of my femur doesn't even fit in economy seat. Heck I could even sleep on that cold as floor, but of course they won't let you.
Exiting the aircraft is more about the other people in the way, than getting out of your seat/pod. But, I can imagine the authorities not caring about that.
Nearly half of the space in the aircraft is unused for 99% of the flight: the space between the top of the seat and the luggage bins.
I’ve seen some designs over the years that would take advantage of this space, but think it’s unlikely.
The cost of developing an alternate design would be incredibly high (especially when you consider the safety and regulatory requirements), and the the net result is more comfortable seating that would cause a portion of highly- profitable business class travelers to move to these cheaper seats.
Maybe such an opportunity will be exploited by an upstart looking to grab market share.
I’ve developed such a seating concept! I’m presenting it to airlines at the largest aircraft interiors show next month. PM me please. I like your thoughts on the topic.
And what's the purpose of that? If anything happens in-flight, most likely you're all going to be dead anyway. It's very, very rare that passengers are actually able to escape a plane that's crashed; the "Sully" incident is one of the few that come to mind at the moment.
I’ve invented a “bunk bed” seating concept designed for long haul flights. High density sleeping pods with basic lie flat beds at Premium Economy Class pricing. God pitch for YC? If you know any open minded investors please let me know:)
