Originally Posted by
thebakaronis
Spin88, I agree that seat width is more important than pitch for people of average or below average height. But, based on seatguru, seat widths are as follows on the aircrafts used by the following airlines to a sampling of destinations in Asia:
UA 777: 17"
UA 787: 17.3"
SQ 350: 18"
SQ 777: 19"
ANA 787: 17.3"
Asiana 350: 18"
For the sake of comparison:
LH 380: 18.2" (but seat pitch is 31")
TK 777: 18"
Going from a UA 77x to SQ 77x is a 2" difference, which is significant. But going from a UA 787 to SQ 350 (as in the respective airline's SFO-SIN nonstops) is only a 0.7" difference.
Seat guru and the airlines are selling a bunch of bunk. Just ignore those figures, they are NOT an accurate reflection of what the seat actually feels like. They involve funky efforts to measure just the width of the seat pan, and the response has been (by those trying to game the system with ultra tight configurations) to shrink the arm rests and/or expand the seat pan under the arm rest. The actual space is the middle of the arm rest to middle of the next armrest or the edge of the arm rest (for the aisle and window seats).
I simply took the available floor space, took off the aisle size (typically 19", but the new 10x 777s use 18" aisles, part of why they feel so cramped, because they are...) and then divided by the number of seats. The figures will be off slightly due to the slightly different curve of the sidewall of the plane, but they best reflect reality. Anyone who flies enough - and is of bigger frame - will tell you that the 787 e,g, is a tighter than the A330/763/ old 777 at 9x, and also tighter than a A359. Likewise, the A320 series, with 7" of width in the cabin, is more comfortable than the 737, something I notice on longer flights.