{"id":1876,"date":"2007-01-16T16:43:30","date_gmt":"2007-01-16T21:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=1876"},"modified":"2014-12-16T16:44:22","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T21:44:22","slug":"guru-legroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2007\/01\/guru-legroom\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guru of Legroom"},"content":{"rendered":"\"14\"<\/a>\n

Better airplane seating. It might be one of those things you only think about while you\u2019re actually on an airplane. Your tiny seat, the acrobatics you do to reach your luggage, your neighbor\u2019s trash spilling into your lap. Once off the plane, though, you\u2019ve moved on.<\/p>\n

But Matthew Daimler, who earned his BS in computer engineering from the Whiting School in 1999, doesn\u2019t move on. He thinks about these things all the time. \u201cOne or two inches of legroom really makes a lot of difference,\u201d says Daimler. \u201cIt\u2019s your laptop opening up all the way or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daimler is the CEO and founder of SeatGuru.com, a website that tracks and analyzes every factor involved with individual comfort during airplane travel.<\/p>\n

Leg room. Seat width. How much distance to the bulkhead, the lavatory, or the emergency exit: Daimler measures inches. He counts rows. He observes his proximity to power ports, the locations of televisions, and whether or not the tray table is stowed in the armrest or on the seatback in front of him. And then, he uploads it all to SeatGuru.<\/p>\n

Say you\u2019re traveling to Paris. Click on the link for Air France, select the 747-400, and learn that, on this particular plane, seats 29 E, F, G, and H are behind a bulkhead so they have extra legroom. But hold on. These seats also have less seat width thanks to immovable armrests, are close to the lavatories, and have no floor storage during takeoff and landing. That\u2019s a mixed review.<\/p>\n

For Daimler, it all began with his own discomfort. \u201cI was on a flight to Prague from San Francisco,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAfter takeoff, the guy in front of me had enough space to use his carryon as a footrest. I was so jealous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spurred by that sentiment, Daimler launched SeatGuru in 2002, together with his wife, Susan, also a Hopkins alum (A&S \u201999). Initially, about 100 people a day were looking at the site. Now it averages 30,000 a day; 700,000 a month; 8.4 million a year.<\/p>\n

Who are those 8.4 million people? \u201cThe assistant to the president of Standard & Poor\u2019s told me that SeatGuru makes her job much easier,\u201d Daimler says. \u201cPeople say, \u2018I was on the phone with the airline and they said to go check SeatGuru and call them back.\u2019 Airlines themselves call me and want me to add their airline to the site,\u201d he says. Daimler receives e-mails from pilots and flight attendants. Strangers next to him on flights suggest the site to him. He\u2019s even been asked to autograph a boarding pass.<\/p>\n

In March of 2004, Susan Daimler became SeatGuru\u2019s first full-time employee. And this past January, increasing ad revenues made it possible for Daimler himself to become the company\u2019s second full-time employee.<\/p>\n

As an undergraduate, Daimler combined a major in computer engineering with a minor in entrepreneurship and management, two programs that were created while he was an undergraduate. \u201cIt\u2019s great that Hopkins Engineering recognized the trend in technology and developed majors and minors like that,\u201d Daimler says, adding, \u201cWhile I was at Hopkins I dreamt about running a business like SeatGuru.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Better airplane seating. It might be one of those things you only think about while you\u2019re actually on an airplane. Your tiny seat, the acrobatics you do to reach your luggage, your neighbor\u2019s trash spilling into your lap. Once off the plane, though, you\u2019ve moved on. But Matthew Daimler, who earned his BS in computer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-development","issue-winter-2007"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Guru of Legroom - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2007\/01\/guru-legroom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Guru of Legroom - JHU Engineering Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Better airplane seating. 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