Word: seating
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...hard to get excited about flying these days. Hard, that is, unless you've just boarded the Airbus A300 owned by former Indian Airlines engineer B.C. Gupta. Take, for example, the safety demonstration. After asking for a volunteer from the 120 or so kids crammed, some two to a seat, in the plane's economy-class cabin, flight attendant Ridhi Sehgal explains how the oxygen masks work. A plastic deck chair appears, and Sehgal helps the volunteer, a worried-looking boy of 7, up onto it so that the other passengers can see him. "This is just for show," Sehgal...
...more limited pool. In both cases, "it is a combinatorial game," De Rond says, and managers need to rely on their instincts as well as objective assessments to find the right mix of players. And that means every top-flight, tightly wound crew might want to save a seat for at least one O'Shaughnessy...
...that our coach seats were cramped. The new Airbus is one of the world's longest airplanes and can typically seat 313 passengers, but the airline installed just 181 seats to allow more room. There are 117 in coach in a 2-3-2 layout. Not only is each coach seat 5 in. farther than usual from the one in front of it, it is 20 in. wide vs. the typical 17 in. Even the aisles are wider: 20 in. vs. 19 in. If these differences seem minuscule, they're not: they gave me enough space to change positions, stretch...
...only moments before takeoff when Tony Fernandes, CEO of high-flying budget airline AirAsia, rushes onto a plane destined for the Malaysian resort town of Kota Kinabalu. But there's no plum seat waiting for him. Even top managers at no-frills airlines don't get any frills. Fernandes treks through the crowded plane searching for an empty chair, ending up in one of the last rows. When flight attendants appear with a cart of sodas and instant noodles for sale, he plunks down 80¢ for a can of Milo chocolate drink. Fernandes then spends much of the two-hour...
Fernandes wouldn't have it any other way. "I love it when I struggle to find a seat," he says, beaming. With ticket prices as low as 29¢--yes, you read that right--seats have often been hard to find. Fernandes expects to fly 4 million passengers this year, twice as many as in 2003. His success heralds a revolution in the airline industry in Asia. Although Americans and Europeans have benefited from low-cost air travel for years, tight regulation, powerful national-flag carriers and a dearth of airports have kept budget airlines at bay in Asia. But finally...