Flights off the island to the mainland are pretty long, and we all know how airlines squeeze seats to the point of ridiculousness. Today I took such a flight on Alaska/Hawaiian Airlines, and I can only say that whoever created this seat layout started by saying “hold my beer.” The seat I was in was behind a crew jumpseat in the exit row. To begin with, the jumpseat is farther back than regular seats. Worse, there is no space under the seat for your toes. Even worse, at ground level the seat base extends even four inches farther back. So it’s worse — considerably worse — than the seats behind bulkheads. There wasn’t even enough room from the front of my seat to the back of the Great Wall in front of me to put my (size 12 in slippah) feet flat on the ground. I had to tuck my heels under my seat just to keep from having to curl my toes back. I estimate that I had about ⅓ the floor space of the other coach seats but, of course, I didn’t get any discount. I had to stow my laptop bag in a (full) overhead compartment. The seatback pocket was so small and tight that I couldn’t even put my compact water bottle in it.
And this is the lovely view from that tiny, tiny seat:
Note that they had to beg people not to put their feet up on the Great Wall because, well, there isn’t anywhere else for your feet to go. Feet on the wall with your knees by your ears would definitely have been more comfortable than to twist and curl them so they fit on the floor.
The only salvation was that I was able to stand in front of the jumpseat for most of the flight. I certainly couldn’t have left my feet crammed into the tiny square of floor space for 5+ hours. They could have more honestly marketed that space as “standing room only,” but I’m sure the FAA wouldn’t allow that.
Whoever decided that they should sell that space as a “seat” at full price should be eternally damned to a Hell that’s equivalently proportioned.
—2p