"Please Return You Seatbacks to their Upright and Uncomfortable Positions"

I would like to meet the inventor of the airplane seat and have a nice chat with them. I'd like to know what their goals were in designing these seats. Here are some of my guesses:

OVERALL GOAL: Design the most uncomfortable cushioned seat known to man

- make sure that the back pain these seats will produce gets exponentially worse on longer flights;
- design "cushions" that feel like rock (the "I can't believe it's not rock" sofa);
- keeping in mind that the human back has a concave curvature, ensure that the seat-backs are convex;
- Pretend all of your customers are over 8 feet tall when determining the location of the headrest;
- make sure that the recline on the seat is not noticeable

I mean seriously. I've sat on piles of shattered glass that are more comfortable than airplane seats. And, unfortunately, I fly so often, these "seats" (if one can call them that) take their toll on my back. How hard can it be to make these seats more comfortable?? It's not rocket science is it?

I woke up at 3:30am yesterday to catch a very early flight to Chicago for a day meeting. I was supposed to fly back home on an 8:25pm flight, but because of some nasty weather patterns, I didn't take-off until 11:00pm. I finally crawled home at 3:00am...after being up for 24 hours. I started work at 8:30am.

Ugh.

Perhaps my continued state of sleep deprivation explains my bitterness towards airplane seats. However, lack of sleep notwithstanding, I think the person who invents a quasi-comfortable airplane seat (I am not asking for much), can probably make a pretty penny . . .