La-Z-Boys

I paid for an upgrade with United Economy Plus guaranteeing “up to five extra inches of legroom.” That’s nearly $70 an inch, if indeed you get a whole five inches. It makes a difference if your legs extend beyond your knees. We got the bulkhead seats, just behind business class, and our magnanimous legroom must have been 24-inches extra, reducing the per inch cost to $14.50. A bargain.

But while the leg room is “sufficient for seating,” (in airline jargon), the seats are so narrow, there’s is no where, no way, no how to turn. On bulkhead seats, arm rests do not rise, backs do not recline more than a few inches and there is no way to enjoy those many extra legroom inches. Why are not all seats on long-haul flights like those in business class? Those La-Z-Boy recliners, where the leg supports rise elegantly with the touch of a lever, look mighty good.

La-Z-Boys were invented in the 1920’s in Monroe, Michigan by two cousins who designed a chair for “nature’s way of relaxing.” Before incorporating in 1929, the cousins, Edward and Edwin, considered such names as Sit-n-Snooze, Slack Back and Comfort Carrier before settling on La-Z-Boy and becoming one of the most-marketed names in American furnishings. An irresistibly arcane fact from the corporate website: actor Jim Backus and his alias Mr. Magoo made more than 15,000 TV commercials for La-Z-Boy, earning a spot in the Guiness Book of World Records.

A black mesh curtain is all that separates me from the coveted wide-seated, leg-supported comfort of a recliner; something everyone’s grandma has in her living room. That, and double the miles or dollars. Why the class separation for such a basic human need as a comfortable seat when hurdling through space and time?

Since everyone on a plane pays a different amount (that’s a fact) – and many, like me, are trading rewards for dollars spent on other goods and services for my seat – might it not make sense to upgrade every seat to a recliner, figure out the real (OK, subsidized) cost of each seat per flight and charge that? It might cost somewhere between coach and business, and everyone would have a healthier, more enjoyable experience.

In lieu of re-fitting whole planes, the airlines could at least ingratiate themselves to a few by having a drawing on each flight to give away business and first-class seats to lucky coach customers. But then, the flyer who has paid a lot for his superior position would reasonably resent the inequity, unless, of course, it was a plane full of gamblers. This might work on a plane with extra first-class seats going to Las Vegas. The only equitable way to provide comfort is to provide it to everyone, not at the lowest common denominator but the highest. Dream on!

This is the kind of thing I think about as giant engines drone, shades are drawn against an inevitable sunrise, TV-dinner has been served, $5 paid for a glass of mediocre wine, three bad movies have been endured, and two burly men across the aisle keep track of their bets as they play cards all night under miniature stadium lights which keep me awake. Somewhere over Greenland, I cracked the shade and there, filling the entire northern sky, is the Big Dipper. I am flying into the night and the dawn of meaning.

And I am sitting on a puny airline-issue pillow to protect my butt from the steel bar in my economy-plus seat. Only a black mesh curtain separates me from comfort and sleep.

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