U.K. Bride-to-Be Killed Due to Cramped Conditions on Quantas Airlines
October 24, 2000 4:07 AM   Subscribe

U.K. Bride-to-Be Killed Due to Cramped Conditions on Quantas Airlines A spokeswoman for Qantas was quoted as saying: “The safety of our passengers is always of paramount importance and we refer to the possible effects of flying in our in-flight magazine.”
posted by brian (16 comments total)
 
Anyone who has flown Qantas economy will know what this is like.
posted by lagado at 5:22 AM on October 24, 2000




Anyone else notice that (1) Quantas actually has more legroom than most airlines in its economy class and (2) what the chances of this happening are?

Maybe before we all jerk our knees about how terrible this is we should look at how many people are killed by cars on road journeys under 5 miles, say - the kind of thing you can do on a bike instead...
posted by andrew cooke at 6:01 AM on October 24, 2000


And the article neatly mentions possible decompression sickness at the end...
but still...i'm glad i'm a habitual pacer...otherwise my workstation would pretty well qualify as a cramped space.
posted by th3ph17 at 9:55 AM on October 24, 2000


"Decompression sickness, which can occur if one flies within 24 hours of scuba diving, could have contributed to her death."

Well, there is that. But blaming her death on cramped airline seating does make for a good headline. Best wait for the autopsy on this one.


posted by dws at 10:04 AM on October 24, 2000


If memory serves, deaths-per-mile is even higher for cyclists and pedestrians, presumably because they're hit by the same accident-prone drivers who are biffing themselves off on those short vehicular journeys....
posted by youhas at 11:03 AM on October 24, 2000


The economy class syndrome thing was coined about 1996. Quite a few people have died from it. Basically, if you are on a long flight you need to get up and move around every couple of hours.
posted by john at 11:15 AM on October 24, 2000


I went to Australia several years ago and Qantas planes are tiny. I distinctly remember it only being eight seats across (2 seats on each side and 4 in the middle). That's not small, but for an ~18 hour flight it is. I didn't even think planes that small could fly from Sydney to LA without refuelling.
posted by kidsplateusa at 1:41 PM on October 24, 2000


(1) Quantas actually has more legroom than most airlines in its economy class

Wrong. Qantas has easily the most cramped economy class of any airline I have flown on. I've flown Qantas many times and will always recommend another airline.

Fly Malaysian, Thai or Singapore airlines any day.

posted by lagado at 3:18 PM on October 24, 2000


I think this is SAD, just SAD!
People dying for stupid reasons like this just sickens me...
posted by starduck at 3:41 PM on October 24, 2000


I flew Qantas once, that was enough for me. The food was my biggest disappointment, i was sick for a couple of days afterwards, maybe the food killed the woman?
posted by Zool at 5:14 PM on October 24, 2000


If you have to fly Qantas, go business class.

Plenty of leg room there (I wonder where it came from?). Food is pretty good and LOTS of of booze.
posted by lagado at 5:29 PM on October 24, 2000


I flew Qantas twice last year (yes, they do suck, but it was the cheapest airline). On both flights, the air hostesses mentioned about exercising on the flight. I had heard about this before and since it is Qantas would "go walk about" every 2 hours or so. I mean who wants to sit in a crummy economy class seat for hours on end. Shouldn't people use a little common sense. Also remember Qantas has an excellent safety record and most people seem to like it. My only complaint about Qantas would be about the "quality" of the air hostesses.
posted by jay at 7:48 PM on October 24, 2000


lagado: If you have to fly Qantas, go business class.
Of course, that's what we'd all like to do, but on a transpacific flight it's prohibitively expensive. To top off my bad experience with it being so cramped, I somehow managed to be asleep for both (maybe there were three) meals that they served and no one woke me up. Of course, I did get to go to Australia so I can't really complain...
posted by kidsplateusa at 9:27 PM on October 24, 2000


I somehow managed to be asleep for both (maybe there were three) meals that they served and no one woke me up.

wow, you can actually sleep on an airplane? I wish I were so lucky!

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 11:12 PM on October 24, 2000


I somehow managed to be asleep for both (maybe there were three) meals that they served and no one woke me up.

That would never happen on Malaysian Airlines. If all attempts to wake you up failed, they would probably attempt to force feed you ;-j

I only got upgraded because I had some frequent flyer points but I can tell you it gave me a totally different perspective. So much for Australia being a "classless" society !!!

Also I take back my recommendation of Singapore Airlines, I've been told that they rank as low as Qantas in the leg room stakes. The leg room winners include Thai Airways, Malaysian Airlines, Air New Zealand and even Qantas' Australian competitor Ansett Airlines.

posted by lagado at 3:14 AM on October 25, 2000


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