Ryanair a step closer to standing?
10th July 2009
Ryanair has joined the standing on planes debate by asking its passengers to vote on the issue.
The Irish low-coster is following the lead of Chinese airline Spring, which last month approached their government for approval to offer standing places on flights.
Now Ryanair is running a poll on its website to see if passengers would travel in what it calls ‘vertical seating’ – essentially a backboard with a seatbelt attached.
Ryanair is only proposing to offer standing tickets on flights of one hour or less. It is also trying to gauge whether passengers would pay for standing tickets or if they’d need to be offered free (presumably with a raft of taxes and additional charges on top).
The idea of standing on planes has received a resounding thumbs-down from Wanderlust readers. At the time of writing, 67% of people voting in our poll on standing said they’d never stand on a flight.
The standing on planes issue has also prompted a great deal of debate on our community website goWander.com. “They'd need to be UNBELIEVABLY good value to get me to stump up for one of these tickets,” said Big Fella.
“How do they deal with standing people in an emergency situation? Watch as they stampede to the nearest emergency exit?” Helen Bamber asks.
Only David Greenwell is in favour, saying “If there was a proper standing area with safety facilities and screens/headphone access, food tray etc I would welcome it on flights up to about 4 hours.”
You can vote in our poll which you'll find on the left-hand side of the page.
Share your thoughts on standing on planes at goWander.com
You can vote on the Ryanair plan on their website here