Air Travel
JetBlue Airways is one of the world’s most popular low cost carriers. The budget airline will add a First Class cabin to some of its transcontinental flights in the second quarter of 2014.
Is this a departure from the airline’s budget carrier model or an inevitable sign of the times?
Airlines around the world have been scrambling to install lie-flat seat in their First and even Business Class cabins in recent years, and this is what I find interesting.
I’ve flown twice in Business Class with lie-flat seats – and tried them out on the ground a couple of times – and I don’t find lie-flat seats the least bit comfortable.
I actually prefer the cushy comfort of an armchair to a stretcher, and I found the lie flat seats to be about as comfortable as a stretcher.
One of the drawbacks to the lie-flat seats that I’ve sampled is that they are not very soft, and they don’t seem to be as wide as the Business Class seats of old.
Air Cushions with Adjustable Firmness
So I’ll be curious to see what JetBlue comes up with. According to the press release, the budget air carrier has created a lie flat seat that incorporates “air cushions with adjustable firmness, [and] a massage function …”
I like the sound of the massage function, and I like this even more: there will be a “wake-me-for-service” indicator that will inform flight attendants if the passenger wants to be awakened for meals or allowed to sleep through them.
I’ve always had difficulty sleeping on airplanes, and I’ll never forget the time I managed to fall asleep on one of those marathon flights from the United States to Asia.
I was NOT amused when the flight attendant woke me up for a dinner that I really would have rather slept through.