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Comment by snrplfth | Hacker News Reader

I think it's anti-humanistic to say that, because a small number of people are born a particular way, that others must be charged more money so that they can be accommodated by more services than they would want consume. See? It's so easy to call people anti-humanistic.

Most airlines that I've been on have started turning the exit row into a "non-first-class extra legroom" row. On a few occasions I've seen very tall people sitting there. And there's nothing wrong with building a range of legrooms into a plane. But I don't see why there should be some requirement that a costly good - legroom on a plane - be provided to more people than actually want to pay for it.

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I wasn't arguing for making all seats larger, but against your statement that for the tall people, there is first class.

But first class largely costs more because of its larger legroom. Certainly there's no problem with having a long-legroom-but-no-frills class of seats. Indeed, unbundling services would probably facilitate this.

Have you flown international business or first class before?

It costs a much larger premium than the space differential, it largely costs more due to price discrimination, because many fliers in business aren't the ones paying for their tickets. If you're talking about real first class (which can carry up to a 30-50x price premium on the economy rate), there's also very attentive service, nice champagne, multi-course meals made by an onboard chef served on china plates with silverware, seclusion, sometimes even private rooms. I would not characterize it as "largely because of its larger legroom".

If you mean to say that many people choose business/first because of the additional space, that's more correct. But even in business, it's more about lying flat and other factors than simple legroom.

I have flown first class, not international business. Yes, there is of course a range of first class experiences. Many include expensive additional services.

But a sigificant component of the cost is simply that first class carries fewer people per linear foot than does economy.

Allowing the unbundling of services is much more likely to allow the emergence of an "extra leg room only" class, than is a situation where services must be bundled into a standard package. If the prices have to be the same regardless of seat location, and be packaged with an identical bundle of food, blankets, etc, then that's a strong disincentive to attempt to sell a separate class of legroom seats. And it's much more likely that a "standardized seat" will be too short for very tall people than it will be tall enough - and even if it were, that would mean fewer seats on the plane and thus higher prices.

I started paying business just for the legroom. It's the only reason.

And it's not always as somebody pointed out above that you may chose the door seats for the same price. I had to take a last minute trip for this summer vacation. Those places were part of some "Comfort" plan I didn't even hear of while booking. Fortunately those were the only ones free on the plane and they let me sit there for free. They were booked out for the flight back though...

It's a pain, it got worse through the decades and I fail to understand that development. Was the free market not supposed to make everything better and cheaper? ;)

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