I don’t think SW has stretch seating. At least not the last time I flew with them.
I think the bulkhead and exit row seats have a little more legroom, so if you’re flying Southwest, I recommend trying for early check-in.
Yup. Bulkhead seats are a real pain though because you don’t get an overhead carry on bin over you. It’s a mess. And your xtra small carryon can not be put in front of you. So double trouble.
Exit row is good, but you have to be first in line. We try, but sometimes mis it.
I understand that business is business and they want to cram as many people as possible on the plane, and that people will go to another carrier if it’s $25 cheaper a seat.
My question: how have airlines changed their policies on overweight travellers, as well as their average seating, if at all, over the last ten years? There are probably more larger people than before. In med school, a lot of the textbooks we used were extensive updates of ones written in the sixties. But they didn’t update the examples, which routinely said “an average male weighing 150 pounds”. These days, the average woman might weigh more than that and the average dude forty pounds or more more. There is a modicum of increased sensitivity and awareness to these issues. Air travel is also a tough business and lip service isn’t the same as new policy.
They made the seats smaller, with less leg room. That’s their policy.
Flyer’s Rights, a passenger advocacy group, is pushing the federal government to step in and stop airlines from making seats even smaller.
“If we don’t get minimum standards, then airlines will continue to shrink the seats,” said Paul Hudson from Flyer’s Rights.
Since the 1990s, the width of most airplane seats shrunk from 18 inches to 16 inches, and the distance between seat backs decreased from 35 inches to sometimes less than 28.
“People have been getting larger, both in weight and in height,” Hudson said. “The seats on the other hand, have been shrinking. So we feel this is a safety risk.”
Some of that is due to thinner seats, but yes, I think part of it is also less legroom.
fwiw, I highly recommend seatguru
Airline Seat Maps, Flights shopping and Flight information- Best Airplane Seats - SeatGuru
for checking a particular flight to see how tight the seats are going to be. Often there are a few flights that cost about the same, and I often pick based on the model of plane or the seat spacing. Especially for long flights.
IF, a big IF you have a choice of airline. Our schedules don’t really allow us to be very picky.
I guess it depends where you are flying, and when. When I’m flying for a one day business gig, i don’t have a lot of choice, and pick mostly based on schedule. But even there i avoid Spirit Air. It just doesn’t exist for me, after my one experience on it.
For a trip of a week, i usually have a decent amount of choice. It probably helps that my closest major airport is served by several carriers.
We fly based on a schedule ourselves as well. Even when it’s all planned ahead of time, we are often forced to use a specific carrier. And will often stay in a hotel near the airport before the flight. But that’s my problem. The seats are too.
I think the ‘pitch’ (how far they are apart, front to back) of the seats needs to be regulated, or it’s just going to get smaller and smaller. A half inch here, a half inch there.
This IMHO could be a safety issue. If it isn’t already.
Oh, for anyone that is still listening, the rear toilets have more head room. I can almost stand up.
For awhile Spirit was talking about a direct flight Latrobe to SMX. I was so excited about it!! Latrobe’s little airport is closer than Pittsburgh, and flying out of Pittsburgh we have a connection in Atlanta/Philadelphia/Charlotte/etc. No direct flights.
I go into a flight expecting a horrible experience so Spirit couldn’t disappoint me.
That’s nonsense, though. As @LSLGuy stated earlier:
The planes haven’t changed. Nor has the 3+3 layout changed. And the aisle has certainly not gotten wider. Therefore, the seat widths haven’t changed.
That’s narrowbody only, but those are by far more common on domestic routes at least.
Pitch has though, has it not? Pitch is front to back of seats.
Yes, pitch is much easier to vary, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s gone down. However, given the error about the width, I’m much less confident in their figure for pitch. Maybe it’s true, but I’d want to see the source of the data.
Yeah that statement that most seats are now 16” is bullshit. They’re between 17-18. I just checked some random United flights and every one says the width is 17.3”
MIT says, of course, that more people crammed in an airplane produces more revenue. Airline Data Project of course we know that.
Which means less seat pitch.
There are tons of other sites that say that seat pitch is decreasing. Some though, I don’t know how reputable. How about the NYT ?
I’ve certainly noticed it first hand.
Formally speaking, pitch is the fore-aft distance from a particular point on one seat to the exact same point on the seat ahead. So pitch is the sum of the airspace between seats, and the thickness of the seat.
Over the last 30+ years I’ve been in the biz, seat thickness has gone down by 2-3". So a reduction in pitch by 2-3" over that same timeframe represents no change in the airspace between seats. It does make for a catchy headline though.
In addition to the average passenger changing size over the years a couple of other things have happened meanwhile.
A sizeable fraction of all passenger-miles flown in the USA (and Canada and Europe) are now on RJs like the Embraer ERJ family - Wikipedia, the Bombardier CRJ700 series - Wikipedia, and now the Embraer E-Jet family - Wikipedia
Seats in the 3-abreast ERJ series and 3-abreast CRJ are much narrower than those on narrow-body Boeings and Airbuses. The E-Jet seats (4 abreast) are actually slightly wider than the Boeing’s 6-abreast. The Airbus A320 6-abreast is also slightly wider than the Boeing 737/757. By “slightly” I mean less than 1". But it can be a critical inch for a lot of people.
The other thing that has happened is the growth of ultra-low-cost carriers (ULCCs) exemplified by Frontier and Spirit (but there are many many others), and the semi-low-cost carriers exemplified by Southwest (LCCs). Both of those categories, but especially the Frontier / Spirit ULCC category, make their money by using the smallest practical legroom.
As a consequence of the factors above, the industry average seat width and spacing has been declining, while somebody riding a United or Delta 737 or A320 has the same (admittedly not real generous) personal space they did 20 years ago. Though they themselves are probably bigger, so perceive that unchanging space as smaller.
If you don’t want a shrinking-on-average seat, don’t fly on a carrier that sells the mini seats to keep their prices extra low. Of course that’s easier to do if you don’t live in a small town served only by RJs.
That’s a fair point. Are the averages per flight or per passenger mile? It probably makes a difference.
[sarcasm]
More people equals higher revenue?
That’s the kind of advanced conclusion one expects from a top engineering school.
[/sarcasm]
As for seat pitch, the newer designs are really amazing in how thin they are while still leaving room for cushioning and the seatback entertainment screen.
Fly Frontier and get back to me. Sorry. But my last Frontier flight had maybe a half inch of padding. My 5’1" 115 lb. wife was very uncomfortable. I was miserable.
In cases like that, I vote with my dollars when I have a choice. Unfortunately Denver is one of their hubs, and where we always fly out of (Colorado Springs is sometimes a choice)
What exactly do you mean quantifying “much narrower”? You quantify “slightly wider”…