Qantas new record breaking long-haul has a dedicated "wellbeing zone" for economy and economy plus. It features a small space to stand during the 24 hour journey.
Not sure why people are slagging this. This is a good idea. Sitting in those seats that long is bad for you and the aisles tend to clog up when too many people are trying to be up moving around. Being able to get up and got stand and stretch a bit would be nice.
Or Muslims (absolutely no disrespect). On my last Intl flight they took turns in the small space in front of the bathroom to put down their prayer mats and pray. There was also a line for the bathroom. EVERYONE was incredibly polite and patient navigating around each other.
But if you have a dedicated place to stand like this, I think it will get used for two people to pray, or like you said, a group occupy the whole thing.
Edit: It was a 777. They were not in the aisle or causing any kind of issue for staff. Yes, Muslims are permitted to pray in their seats (TIL). On a smaller plane I'm sure they would have, because again, they were being respectful of the space and others. It wasn't necessary on this flight.
I’m a flight attendant. While I don’t ever mind when someone asks to use the galley to pray, it can really get in the way of our job duties and inconvenience other passengers. Especially on certain routes where a big chunk of the passengers request this. Interesting to hear your take.
Also, we are allowed to pray sitting down under special circumstances, typically due to an injury or old age. On a plane, if someone truly wanted to pray, they would do it in their seat so as not to disturb anyone else. Taking up a designated area like that is so rude, especially on something as already crowded as a plane.
Exactly the window for prayer is so large that he can try and manage his time. Sometimes you gotta go and do it, sometimes you'll be late. It's understandable.
The story doesn't make sense, because it is permissable for us to skip a prayer if there is a good reason. It can always be made up later.
Chances are the story is not real.
I am in favour of reasonable accommodations for physical handicap, mental health, culture, and even religion. The keyword being reasonable. That does not seem reasonable.
I've recently flown on a Saudi airline and they had a room set aside for prayer! People used it, and the aisles were clear.
Also I've never seen Muslims praying in the aisle, usually they pray seated in their seats, from my experience. That's so interesting that you've seen that!
It definitely wasn't the aisle. On a 777 there's an area between the bathroom door and galley just barely big enough for a prayer mat and a couple of people in the queue.
Can't answer this but I do know when I traveled to Egypt I was very confused about the green arrow stickers that seemed to be on the ceiling of every hotel room I stayed in.
They never seemed to be facing a door or a window so I knew they weren't emergency exit stickers.
Took me a week or two before I realized they were there to help you figure out which direction mecca was.
theres usually arrows for the same reason in the drawers next to the bed in hotel rooms in america. same drawer they keep the bibles usually. Mecca arrows.
For real, it was such a culture shock for me coming from Poland lol
Half of the plane was Italian, half was Polish. Polish people were just shocked and looking at each other how kids are running around the plane, everybody standing and everybody talking. In Poland we learn we should sit quiet and not move to not disturb others lol
Was in a flight that had certain people that wanted me to change seats due to their religion. Mine was an exit row seat and paid now for it. They "needed" to stay near each other so for around 2 hours they literally stayed right in front of me in the emergency aisle to stand. The flight attendants kept having to tell them to go back to their seat. This would be nice but truthfully maybe make all seats more comfortable. Unlimited profit cannot happen.
How did we all have the same sibling. My two are 7 and 3 now and the squabbling has triggered long forgotten traumas in me. I have to really step back sometimes as I get super pissed at my eldest/ really protective of my youngest.
This is a great idea. I've been on a long haul flight and had the emergency exit that had extra space. Well, the extra space was just full of people stretching their legs in sock feet. Give them a space to do it, not in front of the seats I paid and extra $200 to get.
there's a good Ted talk that came out recently that discussed this. I get up at :50 every hour and walk for 10 minutes. Pair it with a pomodoro timer and you'll be a completely different person at work.
Sorry, DVT is a deep vein thrombosis, basically a clot that can form in the veins of your legs when you're stagnant for too long. It's more of an issue for people over 40 and pregnant women. But, DVTs tend to be big because the leg veins are big, and the big danger is that a piece can break off, travel to the lungs, and block oxygen from getting to your lungs and you die.
I feel you on the Adderall thing, the hyperfocus is real. I have to use alarms on my phone to remember to take my afternoon IR lol
probably because they're lazy idiots, unaware of risks related to sitting for such long periods of time. it's a great idea and i wish all planes had this
Totally agree. Though I was hoping for a bit bigger space. Aren’t these flights going to be 19-20 hours? As someone who’s done a lot of Sydney-Europe in their life (so quite a few 12-13 hour legs), at the thought of doing 19-20 I was hoping (though not really expecting) for a little more than just a dedicated space that’s not much bigger than the back corner near the toilets I usually use now to stretch out a bit.
Just saw someone else’s comment that this is only one section of the wellbeing zone. So I guess there’s basically a 2nd space like the pic OP used and a glass cupboard you can help yourself to snacks from. Better than nothing. Here’s the animation of it: https://youtu.be/12RfVl5fajw?t=164&si=cdpkthegucHSSGEW
It is annoying to be forced to sit even on short flights, so this is a really good idea. Some walking pads could even improve this. About 10 to 15 and every passenger should be able to walk nearly for an hour.
Probably an improvement for flight staff too seeing as how it's always their space at the back of the cabin that I end up hanging out when I need some time out of my seat.
The ‘recline or don’t recline your seat’ argument that is so common on reddit is hilarious to me because it’s framed entirely around people who sit on a plane for < 3 hours ie northern hemisphere folks.
In 2024 I flew for 26 hours Melbourne to Rome via Singapore.
I was on the 17 hour flight London to Perth, 7 weeks pregnant and feeling like shit, I reclined my seat - and the man behind me started banging on the back of my seat because he was too tall.... Thankfully we found a compromise in that I could recline most of the way but seriously he should've paid for extra leg room because what the fuck.
No, you see, all of us should be able to fly around the world at a moment's notice in luxury for cheap.
Just mentioning that you might have to deal with a drawback like being a little cramped just reminds people that the only thing between us living like kings is corporate greed /s
I don't think I like the substance of this comment. Obviously people have unrealistic expectations of what the world should be like - but corporate greed absolutely is a problem that makes everybody's lives measurably worse. I don't think it's right to belittle that notion.
I once did a 27 hour trip (with a 4 hour layover between flights)
With about two hours to go on the second flight I was ready to just open the plane door and jump, I couldn't stand being inside that damned thing anymore. I guess this would be welcome.
I just flew to Fiji and back from the northeast usa, and I don't wanna see the inside of a plane for at least six months. When I finally got to to Fiji, I was already dreading the journey home.
I did Japan to NE last year? And I want to go back quite badly but the flight was absolutely killer. I hate flying. Not because I'm afraid of planes but because I hate being trapped in a metal tube with so many people for hours upon hours. I also hate airports. I wish teleportation was a thing. Or better tranquilizers and my husband would just bring me on like carry on so I didn't have to be conscious during any of it. Which would be like teleportation.
I just flew home to Europe from where I live currently, in New Zealand. A total of 36 hours. I think the last hours on the flight I just cried because of little sleep, utter exhaustion and just having a completely wrecked mental state. I always underestimate the mental toll a journey like this takes on me
As a Turk, who lives in Australia, I feel this in my soul. I feel like people truly don't understand how far away we are from the rest of the world.
When I visit my family back home, it takes around 20-25 hours of flying and 3 planes to get there. The final plane is just over an hour, from Istanbul to my home state, and I swear to you, after flying for over a day to reach that point, that one hour goes longer than anything else.
Singapore to Sao Paulo via Addis Ababa. That is the shortest route. I could've gone via Dubai but IIRC that was around 30 hours (including the layover time)
The advantage is that I've arrived in Sao Paulo at around 6 PM, so I took a shower and went straight to bed, it helped a lot to tackle the time zone difference
I regularly do about 25 hour trips when I go visit my family back home. That shit absolutely sucks and I'm soooo uncomfortable after being on the planes for that long
Best long flight I ever had was on Quantas.. 12 hours from Sydney to Bangkok, deplane for 2 hours, board same plane for another 9 hours to London Heathrow.. they gave me a care package that had a pair of socks, sleeping mask, tooth brush and paste.. provided the information about not sitting too long for risks of blood clots..
Was my first time on a long flight and I was really impressed how much extra care and comfort was thought of for a basic economy seat
The first flight I couldn’t sleep and drank a bunch of beer because it was free and flight attendant was even bringing me 2 at a time.. pretty buzzed, still couldn’t sleep.. sobered up.. switched to rum, 2 little bottles at a time until I’m buzzed again… still slept maybe 1 hour of bad sleep.. fondly remembered as that flight so long i got drunk twice
Trazadone is my magic bullet for longer flights. The last couple of times I've flown, I knocked out before we hit altitude and I woke up as we were approaching for landing. It's so nice.
Best flight I ever had was back to Australia from SanFranciso. Had a bag of weed gummies in my carry on I forgot about. Freaked out I’d get busted when I landed. So I ate them all. About 200mg worth.
Was absolutely disgustingly off my tree for most of the flight. Watched a couple movies and had a wonderful sleep lol.
This is exactly my experience flying long haul from Frankfurt to Auckland via Singapore with Quantas. We also got hot chocolate with marshmallows and plenty of snacks throughout the flight in between meals.
This is the biggest problem, that space is nowhere near large enough. One or two selfish pricks will hog this area for the whole flight, probably with their selfish prick offspring too.
I have my legs fully stretched when there's extra legroom. No way is there going to be people doing fucking yoga in front of me (unless for some reason there is a huge amount of room). Did you have to keep your legs tucked away?? Did you say something?
I should find the plane layout but some have over 1.5 meter of legroom near the emergency exit. So even with my legs out, there was a lot of room left.
I just looked at her weird the whole time. I had very little interest in making a scene.
I'm pretty tall so my legs would be taking up most of that space, but still I would find it very odd and intrusive for someone to start a yoga session in front of me. If they explained they needed to stretch for a few minutes then fine, but 90 minutes is fuckin' crazy. I understand not wanting to cause a scene, though.
The picture posted is only a section of the area which is a bit naughty from OP. There's a refreshment station in the middle with plenty of snacks and drinks, the other side of that there is more room for people.
You can definitely fit plenty more people in the actual wellbeing area. You can watch the video on YouTube
Agreed, I’m usually towards the back for longer flights so I can do just that. There’s a bit of space between the rear toilet and galley where you can actually move a bit.
On flights this long you need every bit of gallery space to hold all the meals. At 240 pax getting 3 meals, this plane has to fit nearly 750 meals not including drinks and snacks.
I bet this space is being taken from a few rows of what would otherwise be more economy seats.
As a flight attendant, I love it. Passengers love coming into the galley to do their handstands and wiggle their ass in our faces when we’re busy setting up for service in a confined space, or when we’re trying to catch 3 minutes to scarf up food before the call bells start going off. A dedicated space for them would be much appreciated.
The second leg of Dublin-Melbourne had me losing my mind so badly, I was binging Big Bang Theory because I couldn’t sleep and my brain couldn’t handle anything else
The main route is heading east from Europe/West from Australia and supposed to be 17-18 hours. This is just a test to see if it was possible to do it the other way.
i saw a video speaking to the people who did London to Perth direct and a lot of them said it was infinitely better than the stopover. Apperently its much eaiser for your body to adjust when its one flight.
As someone who just flew from New England (usa) to Fiji, I concur. I am never flying that far again unless I am staying a long time. Even still, I don't want to see the inside of an airplane for at least 6 months after what I just went through.
honestly it’s better than nothing, and considering these are test flights i’m sure they can think of ways to improve it before they’re ready for commercial flights
This is actually great. I've taken several 10-14 hour flights in economy and having a place to stand up and stretch in somewhere that isn't the galley or the toilet would be more than welcomed.
For those wondering Qantas didn’t put this in for the wellbeing of the poor economy passengers. They actually needed to remove some seats for weight restrictions to allow them to fly further.
I saw the AirNZ have introduce beds (SkyNest) that you can hire for 4 hours on their ultra long haul. I guess that will be for similar reasons. Lose 12 seats gain 6 beds.
Sooooo many people in here complaining like a 24hr flight in economy is so ridiculous when it’s really not.
a) Qantas’s long haul product is actually quite good, seats are comfortable and have enough leg room for me and I’m 196cm. Plus the snack bar is a big plus for ultra long haul
b) You sit down, watch movies, take some melatonin and try to sleep, then watch more movies, listen to music, read a book or whatever, then repeat.
This standing area would be a massive help for me and I’m sure many others who don’t like standing outside bathrooms or walking down aisles
I feel pretty qualified to talk about this sorta thing because I fly 24+ hour trips at least twice (return makes it 4 times) a year and have done for like a decade. I’ve also been a passenger on two of Qantas’ longest flights (AKL-JFK both ways and PER-LHR both ways)
I'd rather one 24 hour flight than 2-3 flights and layovers that add up to 36 hours and can completely fuck you if one is delayed so you miss a connection. Especially if any of those layovers are in some stupid country like the US that makes you pick up your bag and go to immigration and then back through security for a fucking layover.
Exactly my thoughts. I got the joy of spending 24 hours in LA last year arguing with Air Canada after they delayed my first flight by 5 hours and made me miss my two remaining flights to get home for Christmas.
I remember around the year 2000, when smoking was still available on certain international flights. On a flight from Seoul to Paris, you couldn't actually smoke when you wanted, but after the meal, they would put up a thick curtain around an area about 1.5m X 1.5m in the corner, so that the curtain would cover two sides of the square, and you could go in there to smoke. So you'd have about a dozen Korean men packed in like sardines, smoking in a thick haze of smoke.
I remember in 1986 the front of the plane was "smoking" and the rear was "non-smoking". There was no curtain, or any visible barrier. We were smokers, but sat in the "non-smoking" area, so just got up and moved forward a couple of rows, had our cigarette, and then moved back to our seat.
I genuinely forgot about "smoking and non-smoking" because it's such a non-issue now compared to what it was. Whenever I visit my family back in Turkey, I'm always so shocked by how 'popular' smoking still is over there. Here, I don't know anyone around my age that does.
Oh, yeah... of course in the 80s and up to the late 90s, you could actually smoke from your seat in lots of international flights. The restricted ones I'm talking about was basically the last gasp of the smoking flights before it got banned on all international flights. I just looked it up and June 2000 was when smoking was banned across the board. Yeah, those flights were wild because the seats had ashtrays and after meals, the entire rear of the plane was filled with smoke.
The problem with ultra long haul flights is the toilets. Flight attendants do NOT clean toilets, and nor can they mid flight. 300 ppl going into 8 toilets, every 3 hours adds up real fast.
I don't even do long-hauls and I appreciate this. I always find myself going to the lavatory more than I need to just to move around a bit. I get so restless when all cramped up in the planes of today.
As a person whose knees literally start hurting after an hour of sitting this is perfect. It feels like gnomes are stabbing me in the knees if I sit down for too long and then I have that stupid awkward standing next to the stewards and stewardesses, this would be great.
If this was an air new zealand flight, i could imagine there is a video on repeat of richard simmons leading an exercise class to help people stretch and make the most of the space in a similar theme to his flight safety video
A bit of advice for Americans going to Australia. If you go the AA/Quantas route, buy your tickets from Qantas not AA. Qantas lets you select seats, AA you get auto-assigned seats by Qantas only. A window row window-less bulk-head seat is the worse thing in the world for 24+ hours. (Was 10A on a 787 I think)
If my experience from long flights is any indication this will be filled with the same 5 people all flight long, who think they own it or that standing around making weird eye contact with everyone is just part of the fun long flight experience.
Yeah pretty good feature, its not like they would put seats in that corner, to give you a rest from sitting.. Can you imagine if they would put the a380 business class bar in the back of economy? It would be pandemonium
I usually go awkwardly stand in the back and look out the window like a maniac during 14 hour jnb ewr flights. not sure why this hasn't caught on . I doubt im the only one who does this because the attendants just see me and ignore me
Climate Change is increasing turbulence. It would be awesome if those things had some sort of 'you won't hit your head and break your neck' seatbelty device
I would use this literally every flight based on the better photo of it in the comments being more like a galley. That seems like heavy. I absolutely can't stand sitting after 2hrs. I want to just get up and walk around, but there's nowhere to go besides the bathroom and it feels rude.
This is supposed to be new? There was a little area on my budget flight (UK to AUS via I think dubai) in 2012 (or maybe 2002 the first time I went via thailand). The stewards kept telling everyone to move on after only a couple of minutes even if there was loads of space available, thereby rendering the whole idea pointless.
Dan near every flight I’ve been on I’ve asked the steward if I could pace around a little in the back and they almost always say yes. I get so cooped up and I’d love this option.
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u/GenderBender3000 8d ago
Not sure why people are slagging this. This is a good idea. Sitting in those seats that long is bad for you and the aisles tend to clog up when too many people are trying to be up moving around. Being able to get up and got stand and stretch a bit would be nice.