Break a leg

We are flying to Melbourne. It has long been a beef of mine that rapacious greed by airlines involves squeezing long-legged passengers, particularly Australians, into seats suited only to prepubescent children, and other short folk. Tigerair is probably no different than most other domestic airlines in Australia but flying to Melbourne from Brisbane these days you really need to break both legs in order to fit in the abbreviated space offered by this particular provider. So be warned. 

When we first started flying we could actually fit into the seating space provided. You didn't much have to bother your neighbour if you needed to take a walk, either. You could stand up and ease yourself out into the aisle. There was sufficient room as I recall. You could even manoeuvre passed anyone standing there, too. Those were the days, my friends. We thought they'd never end. Sadly, we were wrong.

Seats, now, are squeezed so closely together front to back that when the passenger in front reclines to take a kip, your nose is smashed against the back of his moving headrest, breaking in three places as you bleed all over his bald patch. You try to stand to apologise, but of course you can't. Your legs are stuck sideways in the aisle as they literally do not fit sitting straight as every other tall passenger in your row has occupied the last bit of air space for their own long legs. You remind yourself that of all of them in your row you are the lucky one, you have the aisle seat. You, again, endeavour to stand. 

You press heavily on the armrests to the right and left of you attempting to stand, even obliquely, to accommodate the damned slanted seat in front. Your legs are useless still. Numb from that awkward sideways positioning. Not yet ready to mobilise. Your entire body from numb feet to bleeding nose is skewed into the shape of the letter Z. Your back suddenly objects and spasms in a shaft of pain at the contortion. Involuntarily the pain lash whips you back into your seat so fast that your chin receives an uppercut on the offending headrest in front of you. You break two teeth. You are beyond Ibuprofen; or a back rub. But you are not beyond sense.

A relative's recent experiences come to mind. She tells of flying to Perth a few weeks back and spending four flying hours panicking because she'd watched the safety demonstration and read the guidelines about what position to assume in an Emergency, and couldn't. She'd had a seat reclined in front of her and couldn't move to assume any position of safety at all, if needed. And she is short. 

Logic tells us that this cannot be, should not be, legal. It most certainly is not safe. One wonders who is in charge of setting seating specifications on these planes? Who is the authority who should monitor those specs in the design and installation phase? Do any of the decision makers ever do any research whatsoever on what is actually safe? Or what is dangerous? And what airlines could be liable for if any of it comes to the crunch. As it will.

I try to think of parallel scenarios for such seating: children who have to sit still for long hours in classrooms comes to mind. Would children be allowed to be so crammed into their desks one behind the other so rigidly and restricted, that they are not even able to bend in that allowed space to take out a computer to work, let alone keep a notebook and pencil on a straight surface. Parents would start a class action if that happened to their children. As should airplane passengers. Because that is the reality on these planes.

So, I have had enough. I am not going to take it anymore. I am happy to be a card-carrying, badge-wearing, flag-waving dissenter. My message is a simple one, and it is to all who fly and bleed: Before you board, break a leg. That way you might fit. Or sue! I will be more than happy to support any class action suits that address such pitiful plane seating in the future. Growl.

Note: Adding salt to the wound: Little more than a year after this trip Tigerair announced they were planning to add six more seats to each of these already cramped planes in Australia We, of course, never used them again. Nor will we ever. 

It looks so graceful.  But it is so uncomfortable. 

Tiny seats all in a row