seating

Last couple of long flights I've been on, I've found myself looking around the cabin and trying to imagine what it might look like if designed by people lacking our particular set of hangups and blinders (or by aliens). Looking around at all that wasted space in luggage racks above the center seats that could be, say, coffin hotel bays. Or put the passenger cabin on the bottom of the plane, with windows in the floor -- nice view! Or do away with the seats, just stand up hanging onto straps for takeoff/landing and carve out one's own territory on the floor while in the air (in-flight entertainment!). Or, and this is perhaps strangest of all, stop trying to pack a maximum amount of passengers onto the plane and then only booking half a flight 30% of the time.

Sure, I come up with silly ideas after sitting in the same cramped seat for 6 hours, but let's face it, aside from changes in first class and some incremental improvements/unimprovements, airline seating has not changed much at all for decades. And I refuse to believe we've found the only or the best solution.

In the meantime, seatguru is a nice resource for trying to find a seat in coach that doesn't suck.