To think low cost air travel is insanely uncomfortable

I agree actually and am generally unpicky when it comes to flying. Some airlines are really uncomfortable.

Oh FFS…

I’d write a longer response but my fat American sausage fingers are having trouble with the keyboard. 🙄

I've flew shorthaul with Ryanajr, easyjet, Jet2, BA and KLM and found then all to be much the same in terms of comfort. KLM probably felt the most uncomfortable.

I wouldn't really expect to sleep on a 4hr flight, even at that time of night.

If you want cheap then something has to give. I like that the budget airlines don't have soft furnishings so I expect they are easier to clean and feel more hygienic.

Thing is, airline seats were never comfortable. Ever. The low cost ones are arguably better than what I flew long haul at full whack in the 80's and 90's too.

I like low cost. I can holiday for a fortnight on a small underwear bag quite happily...for £30 return i'd sit on the bloody floor if I had to.

This is the (tongue in cheek) answer to most modern day problems. I like going to festivals, but the living hell that is trying to secure tickets to some festivals is a direct product of there being far more people nowadays who can afford to spend hundreds of pounds on a festival ticket than there were historically. Even the most expensive tickets to a festival I had my eye on (VIP tickets, around $1200 each) sold out in 1 day along with the regular tickets. ONE DAY.

It’s not socially acceptable to say it, especially in the midst of a COL crisis, but we are all so much richer now.

Isn't all Economy much the same now? I've done lots of RyanAir and Easyjet flights and can't say they're any different to BA for shorthaul.

I actually find them fine. I avoided RyanAir for years because of the scramble for seats but they stopped that a long time ago and now, they don't seem any better or worse than anyone else to me.

Agree. Travelling to London, paying for parking and getting a BA flight can be cheaper. Sometimes it’s cheaper/better value to pay for business flights than EasyJet from Bristol even though the seat is the same (eg we value fast track security, lounge access and extra hand luggage because we have small children). And if you’re travelling with a lap infant it guarantees you a seat because you just ask the steward to take the middle table out.

The obvious answer is for air travel to once again be only for the privileged, wealthy few and not for the masses.

If a return flight to Spain cost, say, £3k then there wouldn't be so many people fighting to get on it. The seats could be bigger, everyone could have plenty of legroom - and the rest of us could just buy a tent and go camping in Wales instead.

Like most things, you get what you pay for. After a long break from travelling I had some uncomfortable experiences flying to and from European cities this year (with EasyJet and Jet2) and have decided for my next trip to Prague to pay extra for the extra legroom and a window seat - life’s too short to travel uncomfortably.

I used to know someone who designed the seats.

It's quite hard work. You need them to be very light to save on fuel costs. But strong to withstand a crash. And non flammable. They have to be made out of specially rated materials.

I think these days the short haul ones have very thin cushioning. Maybe it is a good idea to take some sort of airline seat topper with you if you are .. bony.

No seat pockets is another time and cost saver, I gather - no need to go round emptying them of rubbish during turnaround.

At least that would have saved my Dsis from once leaving her reading glasses in a seat pocket…

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

I gather that Ryanair seats (or at least many of them) don’t recline. IIRC from my airline days, this is because if the recline mechanism isn’t working

For info quite a few airlines these days order/ fit their aircraft with fixed seats, saves on weight and maintenance costs. I think Ryanair is one of them.

You're absolutely right though in saying reclinable seats that can't be locked upright shouldn't be used.

I dare say their sets have to be bigger, given the vast size of so many Americans. Plus of course internal distances may be huge.

We’ve flown budget airlines for short haul, maybe a couple of hours max, and TBH we've found them OK.

I gather that Ryanair seats (or at least many of them) don’t recline. IIRC from my airline days, this is because if the recline mechanism isn’t working, the seat cannot be used for safety reasons - they’re tested to a certain G force which applies only when the seat is upright. During my airline days we would now and then have a seat with a red U/S (unserviceable) tag attached, so it couldn’t be used. Which could be a PITA if the flight was fully booked.

Plane seats can be uncomfortable but I don't understand why more people aren't protesting about train and bus seats. They aren't just once a year for a lot of us and are often horrible.

If you think EasyJet and Ryan air are bad you should try Enter Air. Flown with them 4 times now due to the only airline flying to a specific holiday destination without having horrendous timings. Always delayed on the runway, the seats are the most uncomfortable hard seats ever not even a netted seat pocket and my 6ft husband struggled to fit his legs in. I don’t know why but the landings are always incredibly bumpy and to finish us off on our last landing a bit of the internal trim of the plane fell off landing on someone’s head which sort of sums them up😂

The older BA planes are awful.
Never had a problem with Tui. Ryan air is just a plastic slab but at least they can clean the seats easily vomit 🤮

So does a premium airline somehow do less damage to the environment? Or should killing the planet be reserved for rich people?

We went on two flights to get to Bergen in Norway, we had two KLM flights on the way out, and a budget scandanavian airline on the way back. I'm approx size 22 atm with a lot of the weight on the stomach, and I fitted in the seats on KLM fine, with only a little room left on the seat belts, but nontheless I got in them, and was able to use the lap tray without it catching on my stomach.
The budget scandanavian airline however had smaller planes, and I couldn't use my lap tray to put my tea on as it wasn't level.

It’s just depressing how bad air travel is these days. I remember flying short haul as a child ~30 years ago and getting a meal and snacks which were better quality than the food you now have to pay for (on top) on economy short haul flights.

I was referring to easy jet and Ryanair type budget short haul like the OP.
Overnight flights that are more than 4 hours should use bigger planes with reclining seats.

Im 5' 2" and 58 kilos, its not really uncomfortable for me

But passport control, security, liquid restrictions and other passengers have nothing to do with low cost air travel. That's the airports.

Anybody getting on a flight has to go through the same procedures before they can board.

Bag size restrictions - fair enough, but I am one of those people that only ever (with one exception) travels with an underseat bag.

It really is, as well as the fact that you now have to pay extra for ANYTHING

We flew low cost carrier to Japan this year. 9 hours. I hadn't flown in a while and was a bit surprised how cramped it was. They really crammed you in! The icing on the cake was waking us at 4am to sell us breakfast (either pre ordered or purchased in flight ). No one slept.

Thing is, it was cheap. Very cheap. We couldn't afford to fly the four of us full service and the deal meant we had almost three incredible weeks in an amazing country. Cattle class flights are awful, but mean we have great adventures, so we treat them like transport, not an experience.