Your Sunday read: The ever-shrinking economy seats and other flying beasts

Got this from a friend? Click here and join up . No Images? [Click here]( Dear {NAME}, Do you remember ‘More Nice. Less Price’, 1Time (February 2004 – November 2012)? ‘Be Flown Away’ VelvetSky (March 2011 – February 2012) and ‘Less is More’ Skywise (March 2015 – December 2015)? All budding great airlines. All defunct. While in October 2018, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that the airplane industry is expected to generate a massive $28-billion cumulative profit in 2019, and estimated that the number of passengers travelling by plane will reach $8.2-billion (ZAR113-billion) in 2037, flying is not a simple affair. Locally, we have our fair share of turbulence with South African Airways, still battling its own [thunderstorm](; while the IATA also found that although international revenue passenger kilometres volumes continue growing, the African region has “barely increased capacity over the past year (…) and the region lags its counterparts on this measure.” Yet, despite economical traumas and business challenges, flying remains one of humankind’s wildest ever dream-come-true. In today’s newsletter, we tell you everything you ever wanted to know about air travel without daring to ask (including the nagging question: is it my hips or are they squeezing space out of economy seats?) “There is an art … to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Tony Jannus, right, pilots his flying boat in a flight across Tampa Bay on Jan. 1, 1914. The paying passenger, Abram Pheil, left, flew from St. Petersburg to Tampa, Florida, in 23 minutes. (Image from NASA, courtesy of State Archives of Florida) A R70,400 ride According to NASA, the first ever paying “fixed-wing passenger checked his bag on Jan. 1, 1914.” At the helm of the flying boat, the American pilot, Tony Jannus. Who was the lucky customer? A man named Abram Pheil, the former mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, where the flying boat took off. Pheil was the highest bidder at that very seat’s auction ($400 at the time, which is about $5,000 – R70,400 – in today’s money)! How long was the flight? The trip from St Petersburg to Tampa, across Tampa Bay was 34 km and took 23 minutes at an altitude of about… hold your oxygen bottles… 1.5m. Seriously? Seriously. As NASA explains, in the early ages of commercial flights, “passenger aircraft only flew as high as 10,000 feet (about 3,000 m – just for perspective the Mont Blanc in France is 4,810m high), due to the reduced levels of oxygen at higher altitudes.” But on 8th June 1940, the Boeing 307 Stratoliner pushed the planes up in the air at to 6,000m, thanks to its pressurized cabins. Wow. Which airline was flying that Boeing? The famous Pan Am, aka Pan American Airways, which ceased operations in 1991. So who’s the oldest airline still operating? Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij. Er… I beg your pardon? KLM, the Royal Dutch Airline! It launched in 1919 and still very much in operation today. Skyrider 3.0 by Aviointeriors (Image by Aviointeriors) Shrinkage It’s not that croissant. It’s the airline trying to make more profits. We’ve come a long way since the Boeing 307 Stratoliner; in 1940, the plane had 33 seats, lined up one behind each other. In the 21st century, the Airbus A380 could welcome anything from 550 passengers up to a whopping 800 passengers, depending on how the plane was configured. But not all planes are A380, and with many more passengers needing to be squeezed into one plane to optimise flight capacity, seats’ width and legroom started to shrink as fast as democracy under Donald Trump’s presidency. [The Telegraph]( pulled the tape measurer: BA (long haul) Legroom went from 78 - 86cms depending on flights to, well, 78cms. Virgin (long haul) Legroom went from 86cms to 73.6cms. Your knees are crying and so is the passenger in front of you. Delta Airlines Seat width went from 48cms to 42.6cms on some flights. Take that, croissant. If you’re still in seat shrinkage denial, in 2017, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was asked to “address the case of ‘the incredible shrinking airline seat’ by a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,” following associations for passengers saying that the shrinking of seats could lead to accidents in case of sudden evacuations. The FAA decided to shrug the order off. Stacked seats; Image from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Take a stand Standing seats: Coming to a very uncomfortable flight near you, the [Skyrider by Aviointeriors]( might soon be a dreadful reality in our flying journeys (note: the seats resemble that of a bicycle, except you’re half standing in some sort of squat. So glam). Stacked seats: Yes, Airbus patented it. The idea? Stacking people on top of each other – so instead of the luggage compartment, you’d have a human on top of you. Sort of. Someone has been playing with Lego for far too long. Staggered seating: This new seating option, recently approved by America’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), would allegedly solve our natural aversion for the middle seat. The seat is positioned a few centimetres behind and below its left and right neighbours, and the armrest is designed so that you don’t need to punch your neighbour’s elbow anymore. Did you know? 277,000 kilograms: the weight of an A380, the largest passenger airliner by capacity. Itchy: Flight attendants at Delta Airlines [are suing the company]( for allegedly getting sick because of their uniforms. For rent: “In the past decade, SAA has been leasing most of the aircraft it operates, with the contract lease term defining the years that the aircraft will be operated by SAA, before being replaced with other aircraft,” says SAA media relations head of department, Tlali Tlali. Graveyard: Grounded too soon – The ‘Spruce Goose’, Howard Hughes H-4 Hercules, was the largest flying boat ever built; it made one flight before being grounded. The A380, which was a mastery of engineering, didn’t make it past 14 years of production; the Concorde was the first-ever commercial plane to comfortably cruise at Mach 2.02 or around 2156 km per hour; its last flight was on the 24th of October 2003 (RIP, Supersonic). Is it a thing? Supersonic airliners It’s not a thing. It’s kind of a failed dream. But we’re not done just yet. When the Concorde, a French-British “ turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner” landed its last flight at Heathrow in 2003, dreams of going faster than the speed of sound went mute. Fast forward to 2019 and supersonic aircraft are back on the runway. [Boom Supersonic](: A start-up’s plane would be able to fly twice as fast as a subsonic plane at a price close to a business class ticket. Open for business in 2023, they claim. [Aerion Supersonic](: At mere Mach 1.4 (1 728,72 km/h) not quite as fast as its counterpart, but not bad either. Book your seat on the business jet from 2023. [Spike Aerospace](: Allegedly a relatively quiet supersonic jet (no loud sonic boom, they claim) with up to 18 seats, it will fly from Dubai to New York non-stop at "twice the speed of other jets" (aka subsonic planes). Mighty Words “Henry Jones: I didn't know you could fly a plane. Indiana: Fly yes… land no.” Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade “We have clearance, Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?” Cockpit crew, Airplane Advertisement The low-down on vegan make-up Woolworths has launched the WBeauty ranges, which are 100% vegan. By 100% vegan, we mean not tested on animals and using zero animal or animal-derived ingredients. [Read the branded story]( by Woolworths Beauty. 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