Mid-flight walkers must be choosy

By ANNE BESTON

Airline passengers who want to move around to avoid "economy class syndrome" need to pick their moment carefully.

Air New Zealand spokesman Alastair Carthew said that on a typical flight from New Zealand to Los Angeles, which takes between 11 and 12 hours, economy class passengers would be served two meals and have two movies to watch.

An evening meal would be served soon after take-off and breakfast shortly before landing.

Aviation writer Peter Clark said some Asian airlines provided inflight entertainment in economy class, including computer games and up to six movies screening continually.

That meant passengers might get out of their seats only briefly during the flight.

Clark said airlines did not want 350 economy class passengers wandering around the plane.

"They want you in your seat with your seatbelt on. They don't want the liability of you hitting your head on the ceiling [through turbulence]."

Apart from the difficulty of getting up and walking around, a key factor in passenger comfort is "seat pitch" - the amount of room between your seat and the one in front.

Airlines have been accused of reducing seat pitch since the 1980s by about 5cm. Standard seat pitch internationally is about 86.4cm but that can vary among airlines and even among aircraft belonging to the same airline.

In business class on Qantas Airlines, the seat pitch is 127cm.