flyerbaby19

I would say it differently. As long as customers choose to pay less for less legroom, they will continue to offer horrible E- pitch. E+ is an option but the OP chose not to buy up. That implies there's a market for torture to save $30 or whatever it is. They will continue to service that market.

The suggestion to eliminate a row and increase pitch has already been done. It's called E+. If everyone wanted that much pitch, then MRTC would have worked. But people, including the OP have shown over and over again, that they choose price over comfort when it comes to airline tickets.

itsallgood

The eventual plan is to install slaughterhouse meat hooks and hang passengers off of them. Just think of how much lower ticket prices will be with that kind of ultra dense passenger footprint!

findark

Ryanair has paid for research into "bicycle" or "saddle" seats were are only a little less space efficient than that

eng3

I could see a section of very low seat pitch, lets say 28" and lets call it "basic economy". Maybe take out the tray table, storage area and put a sticker with the safety card on the back of the seat in order to make the seat thinner and pu them even closer together. They could limit basic economy pax (and unlucky pax who do not have a seat assignment or on the standby list) only to those seats.

At some point standard economy will be renamed to economy plus and basic economy will be renamed to standard economy.

Then at some point after a few plane crashes or fires, etc where people can't get out of their seats. Once you get a few hundred fatalities, maybe something will change.

DenverBrian

Removing the tray table isn't going to slim the seat any appreciable amount, especially at the most critical point - where one's knees are.

"Slimline" seats are already pretty much at the limits of what is required regarding crash strength and "seat cushion used for flotation" specs.

The next move by the airlines is to convince everyone that they can "get by" on 30" of pitch. And then 29". And then 28". And then 27".

Joe K.

I typically always pay up for F or E+ but wasn't able to on this flight. Thus the point of my post. It's been a few years and several pounds since I last flew in E-.

1kBill

AA's problem was that they gave it to everybody in the entire Y cabin for free rather than monetizing the product as UA did with only part of the cabin available for expanded legroom. I guess the thinking was that it would enough attract pax from OAL's to drive up incremental pricing.

chipmaster

All about the revenue and what they can get away with while still meeting safety requirements. As others have noted if your parents sadly gave you them genes than there is always E+ or more and more $$$ for your comfort and health. I'd say your health is priceless don't sell yourself short.

Just off my PVG-SFO bi-weekly run, there was a poor guy with me in E+ must have been 6'3" maybe 270? lbs, the poor guy barely even fit in the seat and overflowed into the aisle and his neighbor, I have no clue how he could safely and comfortably sit there for 11+ hours. If that poor guy was stuck next to me it would have been an issue! The airlines need to do something here, I wonder who has the liability if the seating results in a clear case of physical injury. I believe there was a recent case of some guy trying to sue for this.

Of course in today's supersizing the seats is becoming disconnected with the demographics of the travel, except for the Far East

sbm12

You'd like to think that, wouldn't you.

The next generation of slimline seats makes some interesting changes over the stuff currently flying to further increase density.

You're a couple inches off already. Flying at 29" on the current generation of seats is a reality today. This is me (5'11"/195#) sitting in a next gen slimline pitched at 28" last month.

Eventually the seats hit the limits of evac testing on the planes for total occupancy and the squeeze stops.

I don't know that FR paid for it, but the SkyRider model made the rounds circa 2010. There were a couple issues that meant it would never fly, including head impact (HIC) and inability to adjust for different heights properly. But it has been demo'd a few times.

DenverBrian

Has the seat in the pic you display actually been certified? And God help us, the seat back is vertical.

An excellent reason for the FAA and/or NTSB to step in and create new, lower limits for evac testing to prevent the squeeze.

eng3

Unfortunately, safety has to be weighted against cost (and politics). There are plenty of technologies that exist that could save more lives but they are not implemented because they are not required because it was decided it wasnt worth the cost.

The only way to override the cost is if people start dying directly because of the seat pitch. And it would have to be alot of people over decades

mduell

I doubt it, I can't see how they're going to pull off 14 CFR 25.562.

sbm12

Which one?

They SkyRider (more upright, saddle seat) has not and will not be. The other one either already is or will be soon and should be on UA planes at some point IIRC.

3Cforme

Sorry, but if that situation happens again you just need to plan to take a different flight that does have E+ or F available. It's like people who are afraid to fly: they drive, train, or just don't go.

findark

The airlines will just order more exits.. cf. the 737 MAX 200.