WN Adding 4 Seats to the -300 and -700?
 

Rumor on a.net that Gary and co. are considering 4 additional seats for the 733 and 737s by adding a row on one side and a chair next to the love seat.

Relevant a.net thread:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/5238071/

I'm okay with it as long as the pitch stays relatively unchanged and the seats don't end up feeling like lawn chairs.

They are playing with fire if they reduce leg room or seat comfort.

This is the way I heard the rumor a while back:

A 700 in Dallas was refurbed with the new interior like will come on the 800's.

Feeling of more space, leg room the same even with the extra row. Less recline and the seat sits lower so more headroom. Seat pocket is netting.

Carpet will be carpet squares. Big dogs gave the plan a thumbs up and this was before they were told about the extra row. If this goes ahead, the retrofit would only apply to the 700's.

What is unclear is how many years it will take for IT to get set up for the 7 extra seats.

If the seat is lower and the pitch is the same, legroom is reduced. In case this is not clear, consider how much pitch you would need with the seat on the floor vs. with a mini-seat 3 feet off the floor.

One obvious calculation (which everyone has probably already made) - if seat pitch is about 30" and you have 23 rows, then if you add an extra row, you will need to subtract a little over 1" of seat pitch per row - that is, unless you make some other adjustment, such as making the seat backs thinner.

I was on the Oshkosh ferry flight with mostly WN employees and pilots. I overheard two pilots in the row behind me talking about the -800 seating configurations. They metioned that the new WN -800s will have a configuration consisting of 175 seats.

On a side note, I also overheard discussions that Hawaii is in the process of being added to the route map beginning in 2013. :)

Take these statements for what they are worth, simply conversations I overheard.

Those are the "slimline" seats they refer to in the a.net thread: seats with thinner backs. Thus, my concern about seats that feel like lawn chairs.

I foresee yet another Oops! popping up on the southwest.com site. ;)

Pitch is pitch, irrespective of seat back thickness. More rows in the same cabin length reduces pitch. If somebody wants to argue that the reduction in pitch leading to reduced legroom can be negated by a reduction in seatback thickness, please see the original comment about lawn chairs. :D

Could be famous last words, but this shouldn't be an IT hurdle. They already handle 122 and 137 seat configurations, and soon will handle the larger capacity of the -800.

I wonder about the transition. How many months does it take to convert the fleet? At what point in the process do they start selling the additional seats in advance, beginning, middle, or end? If they don't sell them until all planes are converted, clearing standbys will temporarily be much easier.

On a different note: will the FA contract have to be renegotiated again?

IT was also able to handle the one off Ford plane that had 125(?) seats.

This will make me very unhappy. I refuse to fly AA's 737-800s because of their "nifty" seats. My mom has just started flying Southwest because of that, because she needs a completely level flat seat bottom for some back/disc issues.

I also believe the "green" trial of thinner padded seats stuck. I observed them being approx an inch thinner, so you're sitting that much lower to the floor on many -700's

I guess the new seat pans would be placed on the existing frames--but it's too bad, if the seat pans are thinner, that they couldn't be left at the existing height or even raised a little, providing more room for carry-on storage and/or feet/legs (i.e., rather than the top dropping an inch, the bottom would be an inch higher). I can't think of a passenger I've seen who has had a headroom issue when seated.