Terrifying proposal for airplane seating

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Not sure what caused the drop in profitablity on the chart, but the liquid ban went into effect in late 2006, making flying even more of pain in the ass.

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Certainly doesn’t terrify me, I’ve successfully avoided the entire airline industry for years and years. Now I work for a company with headquarters a thousand miles away, so I fear my winning streak may come to an end soon.

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Just trying to emulate flying birds:

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Yes.

I have no fear of flying. But the way flying is nowadays I’m very content taking a couple ambien and spending the flight unconscious. I think everyone may have a better experience of flying like cattle, if they don’t have to be awake for it.

Essentially, flying has become about as pleasant as elective surgery. So why not let us escape our misery?

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Don’t forget, there’s a whole 'nuther dimension to work with:

(yeah, this has been around a few years)

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Actually
 What if the upper set were just hanging cots? I’d be into that. Hanging cots, and a set of seats below. And all the people who just want to get the flight over with, just go to the upper set of cots, take a pill and have a nap.

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if four separate events, spaced out over 3 decades, are all it took to drive the entire airline industry into unprofitability, then frankly they deserve to die. I would say “
 in a fire”, but given the context that might be considered poor taste.

I suspect regulators might have something to say about the proposed spacing, given the rampant confusion and panic it’d cause in an emergency evacuation. On the other hand, speech is free and money is speech, so what the regulators have to say will probably be something along the lines of “This is a great idea. Freedom! Let the market decide!”

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“No, this is NOT a slave galley LARP.”

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While just a single event, a terrorist attack that caused the immediate grounding of all North American air traffic for a week and lead people to avoid flying for years is a pretty goddamn big one.

Another possible interpretation is that regulation wasn’t that bad, as while there was a downward trend before 1978 the swings were much less volatile. Likewise during the 1970s oil shock profits managed to remain flat, despite that being much worse than the one that hit the US in the 2000s. Of course, the airlines actually opposed de-regulation back in the day in large part because it produced good steady profits.

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Two words: The train.

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So, airlines stopped recording profit margins half a decade ago, right in the middle of the great recession?

The year after airline deregulation passed wasn’t too good for trains either.

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Even more efficient than what Americans managed a few hundred years ago. http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/58/85158-004-F9837DC5.jpg

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the invisible hand of the market, of course.

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I think this seating arrangement should be tested 
 on the people who patented it, with the rest of the seats filled with heavily-armed reality-TV volunteers. And the test should take as long as a trans-Pacific flight, with 2 hours on each end, sitting on a hot tarmac. And with randomly malfunctioning plumbing.

Round trip.

If nobody dies, they can put it into production.

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Silly, they have their OWN planes
 why would they need to fly on ours
 I mean, if we didn’t want to fly like this, we get our own planes, too, right?

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That image is so iconic,but I think it deserves to be treated as more than just a meme. For instance, this horrifing bit is typically omittted.

Here’s the full pamphlet.

It’s a British ship, not an American one, and the pamphlet states that

Note. The “Brookes,” after the Regulation Act of 1788, was allowed to carry 454 Slaves, She could stow this number by following the rule adopted in this plate, namely of allowing a space of 6 ft. by 1 ft. 4 In to each man; 5 ft. 10 In by 1 ft. 4 In to each women, & 5 ft. by 1 ft. 2 In to each boy, but so much space as this was seldom allowed even after the Regulation Act It was proved by the confession of the Slave Merchant that before the above Act the Brookes had at one time carried as many as 609 Slaves, This was done by taking some out of Irons & locking them {Omitted text, 1 word} wise (to use the technical term) that is by stowing one within the distended legs of the other.

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There are special planes for you people.