Newman55

It's funny how some people think an inch in an economy seat makes it somehow comfortable. Regardless, airlines don't buy aircraft for economy passenger perceived comfort.

LarryJ

My favorite airliners to pilot were the DC8 and 757.

Of my six airlines, UAL is the only one that has operated an Airbus fleet. I picked the 737 over the A320 based on seniority, fleet size, and the types of trips each fleet flew. There are many ergonomic advantages to the Airbus flight deck, and the economy passenger seats are more comfortable to me, but I like my layovers in places like Aruba, San Juan, Costa Rica, etc.



Renaissance Island, Aruba

jsloan

You're indirectly making my point for me. There is a much smaller market for width than there is for seat pitch.

JimInOhio

There's no way to compare them since there isn't an option for a non-premium cabin with wider seats. PE is not that. What we know is people are willing to pay for more comfort.

Actually, there is a test... Europe. They sell plenty of seats as "business" where they block the center seat. They get more money for it than UA and others charge for extra legroom.

jsloan

...

So, PE is a premium cabin but Euro-Biz isn't? Considering what's included in each fare, that makes no sense at all.

If there were a market for wider seats, airlines would offer wider seats. With only one exception I can think of (JAL vs. ANA), the airlines that have tried to resist the narrowing trend have found that they cannot charge a price premium.

atword

An extra inch wide does make a difference to a lot of people, even if they aren't larger.

In the age of immediate information and reviews (Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc), future airline customers will make decisions based on all of this compiled data. The airlines and planemakers choosing narrower seats will ultimately be affected by this decision process. They can try to obfuscate the information but real data from consumers will find a way.

Newman55

jsloan

You would have written the same thing 10 years ago, and then again 5 years ago. Yelp was founded in 2004; TripAdvisor was founded in 2000. SeatGuru was founded in 2001.

The simple fact is, people will say that they care about many things, and at the end of the day, they will choose the cheapest option.

ExplorerWannabe

I wish it worked this way because airlines would be incentivized to sell seats that way but the reality is that we've migrated the opposite direction because that's what the sales numbers tell the airlines. People will tell pollsters a number of things, say whatever they want on Internet bulletin boards, etc. but at the end of the day, the numbers the airlines care about are ticket sales and the data currently tell them to cram coach riders in as tight as they can. I'm sure we'll see different approaches when the sales numbers tell them to change.

atword

I really think it's great that you don't notice. Ultimately our opinions won't matter. Data will continue drive everything in the future and it will become more refined. From airlines making decisions on what aircraft to buy and how many seats to install, to their future customers also utilizing customer-generated data to make informed buying decisions based on seat experience. There are physical differences between the B737 and A320 series, just as there are differences in seats between airlines. In time there will be more information more readily available, to a wider audience.

I think customers may choose an A220 (CS series) seat over a B737 seat if experience reviews were readily available, there was a choice at booking, and an airline were to leverage such reviews.

BF263533

Don't forget that Boeing in the mid 1950s "right-sized" the 707 cabin width that the 737s use. Those 1950s passengers were born in the Great Depression and just were recovering from WW II, where they had food rationing stamps. By the1980s when Airbus set their cabin width we and our parents were quite a bit wider and our grandparents 6 feet under.

Sardine can. I have used that phrase many times here on Flyertalk. The .1 inch is one inch more room and one inch less of your seatmate's body overlapping onto you.

Newman55

SunLover

Kacee

In fact, studies show that an extra half-inch of width in economy can make a substantial difference in passenger comfort. Airbus Calls for 18 inch Minimum Seat Width
I believe you're missing a qualifier there. Some people buy only on price. Many do not. The fact that airlines are able to sell business class and premium economy at a substantial mark-up indicates that many people will, in fact, pay for more space.

And more to the point here, DL's success shows that not caving into the lowest common denominator can in fact produce outsized profits. I would argue that UA and AA have hurt their business and revenues by ignoring passenger comfort (and passengers' corresponding willingness to pay a premium for a better product).
DL provides an even better test case. And JL with its "Sky Wider" economy seats. Both are direct "apple to apple" comparisons.

fly18725

I quick search on Wikipedia would show you’re wrong. Boeing sized the 707 fuselage based on the tooling it had. Airbus intentionally settled on a wider fuselage, but that comes with a trade off in efficiency.

To return to an on topic discussion, United had a contract with Boeing and won’t (or can’t) break it unless a Boeing breaches the contract. I’ve seen no suggestion that the MAX grounding breaches the contract. Therefore, United will continue taking delivery of the MAX, which it has determined is economically superior to other comparable products.