to think that if you need to have a lie down on a flight you're a lazy fecker?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

FFS, a flight is only at max 12ish hours long.

Surely anyone could stay awake for that length of time?

What a great opportunity to catch up on reading, correspondence, or you certainly could be sociable and actually communicate with your fellow passengers.

Do something edifying, you sloths.

And sure Business Class has all those perks so that Very Important People can actually do business, not snore, snort, snuffle and snooze?

If all these large thrones chairs were removed I reckon the airlines could fit on loads more normal seats, thus extra passengers and some planet-saving could be achieved.

They pay so that they can sleep, seems an ok deal to me

Maybe you need to sleep through the night in order to be fresh for 'business' as soon as you arrive?

I can sleep sitting up.

Or standing up when Ryanair try to bring that in again

:)

christ i used to sleep on the flight from Vienna to london........ its only 2 hours

My last flight took 32 hours door to door. I thank my lucky stars I got to do it in first and business.

Love the nice big squishy chairs and did you know in first they will make you a proper full length bed with a sheepskin underlay.

Fantastic. I won't fly cattle class anymore, this means I don't fly much at all so probably works out better for the planet.

DH flies business for work, he sleeps the whole way mostly, because he hits the ground running at both ends.

You sound a bit envious but then you probably should be because it is nicer at the front of the plane.

;)

If it's your only chance to sleep when you do 14 hour days......

Just think those expensive seats subsidize pigs and chickens class

From your comment I imaine you don't travel business class? Thanks to savvy use of airmiles, I regularly travel in longhaul business/club class and I can assure you that most people pay for those seats for the lie-flat beds (not to do work for 12 hours despite it still being called "business" class in some airlines). Most have no desire or inclination to chat to strangers in what is usually a small cabin.

Tomorrow I'll be taking an overnight flight with my family in club and we have no intention of wandering around the cabin like Johnny-come-latelys making conversation to strangers! As we always do, we'll start by chatting amongst ourselves until food and drink are served (we usually dine in the business class lounge anyway pre-flight so tend to pass on inflight meals, but we'll always have something to drink). Then we recline our seats to the lie-flat position, tuck in with the lovely blankets over us and we're out until breakfast. That's what we're "paying" for! And we are far from being very important people - as I said if you collect enough miles you can upgrade flights which is what we do, usually for just a little over the cost of an economy ticket.

BTW, fare paying premium class flyers tend to subsidise everyone else - someone paying £4K for one first class seat which occupies the same space 3 economy seats occupy, is a lot more profitable than 3 people in economy paying £400, so the airlines are in no hurry to remove the "large chairs", unsurprisingly!

Actually the last time I flew with work I was expected to be in work after I landed. Left at 13:00 flew for 10:35 hours landed at 11:00 local time and went straigh from airport to work as does everyone I work with you has need to travel.
Don't know about you but I'm not really at my best when I've been awake for 23+hours, though I am better than most (or so I've been told)
But once it hits 26 hours I start vomiting, not good in a meeting with your boss's boss's boss's boss

Well personally I have to sleep during my regular i wish flights to the states as I get NO sleep the night before thanks to constant pointless panicking about oversleeping and missing the flight...

However I'm fully aware that I'm not normal!

Sure, I can stay awake on a transatlantic flight to the US. But the same plane returns overnight - grab what sleep you can, its still the Red Eye.

So Chaos, you'll be signing up for the standing-room only budget airlines, will you?

12 hours? You've never been to NZ then?

Agree Bluddy - any journey longer than 1 hour long and if possible I'll use it to sleep

My last trip on ma plane was just over 24hrs in total, from door to door. Sadly could never afford to fly club class - however being small has it's advantages - you can curl up into the smallest of seats to sleep......and as on eht way there the actualy main flight was a night one that's just what I did.

I'm flying across the Atlantic this week. The nine and a half hours it'll take will give me the chance to catch up on some sleep and hooray for that!

But then I'm not the sort of irritating fuckwit passenger who needs to foist themself onto complete strangers.

Sounds OK if you are talking about 2-3 flights a year, especially if flying for pleasure. But try 9-12 hour flights 12+ times a year, with 8-16 hours timezone difference and going into work next day, working for 5-10 days and then flying home, to be repeated every 2 weeks. I did this for one year. And I NEEDED to sleep on these flights. By end of twelve months, I could fall asleep before flight left and not wake up until landing. This is a reality for many business travellers.

Lord save me from sociable and communicative fellow passengers.

I was upgraded from business to first on Virgin to san francisco once because the moment I sat down the loony bloke beside me said "Well! Nice to meet you! We've got a really long flight to get to know each other, so that's great!"

I got up, went straight to the incredibly camp steward on the door and said "If I have to sit next to him I'll kill him - what can you do?" He went to say hello to him, came back and said "If you don't kill him I will - let me take you to the front darling".

Bliss

Pre-child I had trained myself to be asleep before we'd even taken off!

It's not like there's normally anything very interesting on the in-flight entertainment, the food is generally rubbish, and these days I can only drink so much free booze...

I'd prefer to be awake when we land myself.

But its very lovely to have a nice lady make your bed up and took you in so you can then snooze before she wakes you with a bacon sarnie

tuck you in even ...

Freshmint - surely you mean BA? Virgin have no First class cabins - just Upper Class (which is business class), premium economy and economy. Or perhaps you were originally in premium economy?

yup I was in premium and went to upper
quite right
but they gave me a duvet {sigh] so that was lovely

Oldraver - you sound like a BA flyer! I love those early morning bacon butties

Freshmint - makes sense now. Lucky you!

Love that, Freshmint! Knowing my luck they'd be all full up and I'd have to sit next to the loon. Ah, the sweet release of sleep in those situations...

Not that I can afford business anyway. But if I could, I would. And I'd sleep.

Although she might not admit it, OP is jealous - with good reason! I can sympathise. When you catch a glimpse of luxury on your way to the middle seat (of 5) on a 10 hour flight...

In First on Qantas the nice lady even takes away your whining baby so you can both enjoy your meal together and have a glass of wine, you poor thing.

You can have my FF upgrades when you prise them from my cold dead fingers, as far as I am concerned this is my payoff for not seeing my DH for weeks at a time.