Originally Posted by
LarryJ
American, Delta, and United all offer economy seats with additional legroom for purchase. On United, roughly 25% to 35% of the economy seats have this extra legroom but those seats are usually the last to be selected. I frequently see seat maps with full regular economy sections and numerous available seats in Economy Plus. Those extra legroom seats were available to every passenger with a pre-assigned seat in regular economy but they preferred to give up the legroom in order to save money. That is the free market at work.
Who are "they"? I'll give you another perspective. It's physically impossible for anyone above 6'4 to sit in those Y seats if people recline. 6'4 is 2 standard deviation from US population, it means 1 in 40 people cannot fit.
For flight over 3 hours, they risk DVT life threatening emergency. Because "they" chose to have cheaper flight, up to 5% of population cannot fit or has to shell $300 roundtrip for medium lenth domestic flight. Free market is great if you're median target group I guess.