Who approved these seats?
TLDR: The newer seat backs on AS planes have an unnatural curve that create back pain on flights - how do you cope/ what do you being with you to adjust for this so you aren’t miserable during and for days after a flight?
For quick readers or bored Redditors: I haven’t flown AS much this year and on the few flights I did take, all were in first class.
This past week I had to fly a decent distance (1500 mi) on very short notice, on nearly full flights, with a turnaround of about 24 hrs. I was upgraded to a middle premium seat outbound but stuck back in main in a middle seat for the return - the only other empty seat was another middle seat even further back.
The lack of even a few inches of extra space was noticeable, but whatever. For 3.5 hrs I can generally tolerate just about anything.
But about an hour into the first flight I realized my back was hurting and I just could NOT get comfortable. It wasn’t just the lack of padding - I can shift weight and deal with that. It is the weird curve of the back of the seats that is opposite the natural curve of the human spine that is the issue.
How the hell did anyone think this was the best design for humans stuck sitting for hours? I tried balling up my jacket to create some lumbar support but it is the whole seat that is the issue so it only helped a little, and the tip of the seat where it starts to curve forward still created the most unnatural angle for my upper body.
I’ve never had back pain before but my empathy jumped for those that do - it was miserable. I had to fly back the next day with my back still sore and even prepared for the seat, I wasn’t able to find a way to make that unnatural curvature of the back of the seat tolerable.
Now I am looking at travel hoodies with inflatable back and neck support, inflatable lumbar pillows, etc because a life change in the family means more short notice trips like that are very likely in my near future, and AS has way more options for those flights than any other airline.
I’m submitting to Alaska (Doesn’t) Listens but it isn’t reasonable to think they will just replace these new seats when people complain since they spent so much money to refurb recently.
How does everyone flying in the back manage this?
(I am a smaller person - 5’6” with a very small frame and normally good posture with a healthy spine & core.)