The chain, which had scotched its signature blue A-frame design in favor of big boxes that can seat more customers, is testing a new prototype that uses the A-frame as a restaurant's entranceway.

FORBES: Breakfast Breakout

One of the most popular is a chart allowing customers to pick their own seat on an airliner.

FORBES: Parental Ingratitude

United will change its boarding Thursday so that after elite-level customers, the rest of the coach cabin will board window-seat passengers first, then middle seats, and aisle seats last.

WSJ: Summer Air-Travel Survival Guide

At privatisation, it was felt that certain customers needed protection, says Mark Smith, founder of website The Man in Seat Sixty-One, who used to set fares at the Department for Transport.

BBC: Have train fares gone up or down since British Rail?

Exclusive deals could limit the number of potential customers for, say, Airbus's planned 550-seat aircraft, which would mean that that aeroplane (bigger and better than Boeing's jumbo) might not even come to market.

ECONOMIST: Brussels v Boeing

Seat manufacturers built mock-ups of Air New Zealand's most promising ideas, and the airline invited some customers and staff to secretly test them out.

WSJ: Remedy the Squeeze in Airplanes' Coach Cabins

Browning said the cruise control position, the placement of cup holders, air conditioning controls, seat adjustments and other items that annoy U.S. customers are being changed before cars are built.

WSJ: VW's chief in US expects sales to keep growing