Tagged With "Passengers"

If this standard were adopted, it might be the single greatest improvement in quality of travel in economy class. 17 inches is alright if no one is beside you, a rarity today. On an Transocean flight, it make sleeping very difficult indeed. I'm glad to see Airbus take this proconsumer stand.

Airbus has taken a major step in passenger comfort with the introduction of the new Airbus 380, their new double-deck airliner. Just as a large cruise ship will sail choppy seas in much greater comfort due to its size and sophistication, the new 380 is so much more smooth, quiet and comfortable up in the skies. Sure seat sizes and configuration will vary between operators but certainly the overall 'environment experience' is so much nicer

Interesting point, Mac. Large planes with bright decor somehow seem to me roomier, even if the seat is the same size. I think there's a balance between physical comfort and "feel" that airlines may not always recognize. On the other hand, I've been on 777s that had so little division of space that my mental image was sitting in a huge concert hall...and felt a bit uncomfortable from that!

I've never flown an A380, Mac. They still haven't caught on in North America, where Boeing clearly dominates the market. One thing that I've wonder about is with all those people to board (somewhere over 500), is the process of getting on and off the plane very slow or have they figured out how to make this move along with reasonable efficiency?

It seems as if the terminals that they use have many more access ramps (fingers) to spread the loading and unloading, plus, of course, the terminal also needs to have sufficient immigration desks and baggage facilities. So far our experiences have been good but I can imagine just how it could foul up!

UK Air passenger duty for under 12's will be abolished from May 2015. Under 16's will have to wait until 2016.

Everything has relative value -- a hungry person would pick the free meal, for instance -- but at some point people pay for comfort. Many already pay a little extra for legroom by sitting in the exit row (or use points to do so). There comes a point where, especially on longer flights, you want to be comfortable and are willing to pay a little more to achieve that. I definitely consider the pitch and width of airline seats when making purchases, especially overseas purchases. I'll pay a...

I'd agree...in fact, the issue of space is what keeps me from considering some longer flights...and I have been known to change flights for the possibility of a 2-seat row rather than 3...better an aisle and a window without a middle!

The infamous British Air Passenger Duty, which can add as much as $450 to airfare for a family of four flying trans-Atlantic to or from Britain, may have met its match in the Scottish vote against independence earlier this fall.   Seem...

Airbus, the big European planebuilder has urged airlines to go with 18"-wide seats, up from the standard 17" in use now. Their studies indicate that the extra width makes a BIG difference in passengers' ability to sleep on long flights (which are...

Proposals in the EU Parliament calling for more information about airline passengers to be made available to national authorities are on the table; they would make the Passenger Name Record (PNR) of all passengers arriving and departing EU available....

If this customer service story had been made up by Alaska Airlines to embarrass West Coast rival and also codeshare partner Delta, it would have been unbelievable...but they didn't, and it happened. USA Today reports on a Delta business traveler who...

The much-hated British Air Passenger Duty (APD) which for the past several years has made flying in and out of the UK more expensive than many other routes, is getting some adjustments and reductions.   British tourism and travel companies, as...

Today's the day Britain's Air Passenger Duty ends for under-12s in economy, reducing the cost of flying by £11-97 ($17-150) per ticket.   The tax, hated by families and blamed by travel industry companies and airlines for shooing away...

Flight attendants, at a Federal hearing, pointed to "legroom wars" and increased air rage. A safety expert pointed out that the FAA's evacuation tests use planes with more legroom than you're likely to get, and Charlie Leocha of Consumer Traveler...

You'd think the airlines had never heard of a fee they didn't like, but now they've found one. Maybe what they don't like about it is that the money goes to airports, not airlines. The charge, which the airlines call a "tax" is the Passenger Facility...

2015 could be the busiest summer for air travel in U.S. history, breaking a record set in 2007, before the big recession. Airlines for America, the lobbying arm of the major U.S. carriers, is predicting 222 million travelers between June 1 and August...

From all the online discussions and articles highlighting the increasingly uncomfortable seating in economy, you'd think that "more room in coach" (as the old American Airlines slogan had it) would be most passengers' first choice of a perk, if...

A fire last May that heavily damaged Terminal 3 at Rome's Fiumicino airport is leaving passengers stranded or with major changes. The terminal handles most international flights, and it is mostly international flights that are affected.   In one...

Die Bahn hopes that closing doors earlier will get trains out of the station on time.

With the rising awareness among average Indians, the demand for improved services is on the rise these days than in the past. Nothing exemplifies this phenomenon or the new trend in a better way than the choice of rental cars among people in India. Though the cab culture in India has undergone some changes in recent years, it is still quite a distance away from accepting the idea of self-driven cars. That said, the joys of self-driven cars far exceed the experience of sitting in a passenger...

As a security measure, European airlines will now be required to collect and share more passenger information, matching U.S. and Canada.

  Japan's first domestic passenger jet, the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), had a successful test flight from Nagoya airport.   Mitsubishi's MRJ will seat about 80 passengers and will compete with other regional passenger jet...

The airlines have their bag fees, change fees, seat fees, and so forth. The government has its taxes of various kinds and security fees and airport improvement fees. So what's left for a poor airport to do? Well, some of Britain's airports are now...

JD Power's annual survey of airline satisfaction says we're happier with flying than anytime in the past ten years...how about you?

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, which has claimed the title of world's busiest airport 17 years running, based on numbers of passengers, has now become the first airport ever to serve 100 million passengers in a year...and the year ain't over yet! But the airport didn't wait for the last days of the year to celebrate; in the clip below you can see how it celebrated, with surprise honors for the lucky 100-millionth passenger, Larry Kendrick, who was greeted by Mayor Kasim Read, news...

I expect it will be one the finest regional jets made. I hope they succeed.