How long can you bear on a no-frills flight?

Four hours flying in the cheap seats: for most passengers, that is the maximum feasible journey aboard a low-cost airline.

A poll conducted on X for The Independent found just over half of the almost 2,700 self-selecting users say they would tolerate a flight on the likes of easyJet, Ryanair or Wizz Air of up to four hours. A further one in seven said that two hours was their limit – meaning that almost two-thirds (65 per cent) are not prepared to go longer than four hours.

One in nine would stretch to six hours with minimal legroom and no seat recline.

But almost a quarter (24 per cent) said they would fly for as long as it takes, so long as the fare was right.

The social media poll was launched after Wizz Air announced plans to fly an all-economy jet between Gatwick airport and Jeddah on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea. The distance of almost 3,000 miles will take nearly seven hours.

Starting on 1 April, easyJet will launch flights between Luton and Tbilisi in Georgia – a trip scheduled for five hours 40 minutes on the inbound leg. Britain’s biggest budget airline already has a six-hour-plus flight from Belfast International to Hurghada on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

The longest Ryanair flight, from Warsaw Modlin to Tenerife South, is timetabled at just five minutes short of six hours.

One respondent to the poll, Jonathan, wrote on X: “At hour four on the 3am Wizz Air Tel Aviv to Luton in February, most of the fit young grown men forming the majority of the passengers were reduced to brace position out of a mixture of extreme discomfort and consequent exhaustion.”

But Paul wrote: “Just done Sharm el Sheikh (5.5 hours) with easyJet – was absolutely fine.”

“Flying is now a trial of endurance,” Peter Cooper commented with some exasperation. “Misleading pricing, complicated booking and ticketing procedures, airport car park rip-off, drop off rip-off, security queues, bag-size police, cramped economy experience, strikes, delays.”

The 24 per cent who said they would be happy with a no-frills flight of any length include two members of The Independent travel desk.

Global travel editor Annabel Grossman said: “If the plane will get me there without too serious delays at a reasonable cost and without screwing me over with hidden costs or questionable ethics, then I’ll fly it.

“Legroom, meals, lounges…