Originally Posted by
dtremit
Neither do AA's;
they're 171 degrees. (Slightly better than CO at 170 degrees, but NW's were actually 176 degrees.)
Uhh, Barney Gimbel of Fortune magazine doesn't understand geometry.
AA's crummy angled-flat seats recline to 180 degrees and make a flat surface, albeit one that is angled about nine degrees away from horizontal. Barney Gimbel then subtracted that nine degrees to arrive at the ignorant (and factually incorrect) conclusion that AA's seats recline to only 171 degrees.
180 degree flat seats aren't necessarily parallel to the floor, and AA's crummy NGBC seats are no exception. Just like the seats at LH and JL and other airlines that haven't replaced slanty seats with parallel to the floor flat seats.
The NW seats, on the other hand, did not recline a full 180 degrees, rather they reclined to 176 degrees.