the incredible shrinking airline seat

the 16% solution...

Once upon a time, long, long ago when I was a young child, I flew to Florida with my mother and brothers. I have no idea which airline we flew, probably a now-defunct carrier such as Eastern or National. I can still picture the inside of the plane. The forward cabin for the first class passengers was configured with two-by-two rows of leather seats. And the main cabin for the coach passengers, where we were seated, was also configured with two-by-two rows of leather seats. There may have been a bit less padding in the seats. There may have been a few less inches of pitch (leg space). Being a young child, and short for my age, I could notice no discernable difference. I remember asking my mom about the difference between coach and first class. She replied that the difference was probably in the food. But we were served steak back in coach! (This was probably in the early 1960's.)

I remember flying back and forth to college in the early 1970's. Sometimes I flew Eastern (more about that later), but I usually flew Allegheny Airlines through its hub in Pittsburgh. Although it was known in those days as Agony Airlines, I nevertheless remember the seating as being perfectly acceptable. There were no assigned seats, as I recall. The airline had open seating and it was all coach (just like Southwest today). But I remember that coach in those days was fine. Once my father bought me a first class ticket back to college on Eastern. I traded in that ticket for a coach seat and pocketed the difference in cash.

I even remember my first trip to Europe. It was on an all-coach charter flight. I was 18. It was perfectly comfortable. I remember my second trip to Europe. It was on an all-coach Icelandic propeller plane. (I was on the wrong plane, as it turned out, but maybe I'll share that story in some later blog). I had plenty of space. The food was good. And I even slept.

But something has happened in the years since. First came the innovation of the widebody jet: the Boeing 747, the Lockheed L-1011, the DC-10. I remember the first time I stepped onto a widebody, a L-1011. The cabin was so wide, I was literally confused for a moment, thinking I was still in the terminal. Wide bodies made possible a feeling of spaciousness.

But the airlines soon figured out that if they made the seats narrower, they could squeeze more seats into a row. If they pushed the rows of seats closer together, they could squeeze more rows onto the plane. More seats equals more passengers. More passengers equals more revenue. It's the miracle of multiplication.

But the consequence of that miracle has been terrible for the average air passenger. Call it the sardine can effect. Coach seating today on most domestic and international airlines is abysmal. I'm not a big guy, but my shoulders are wider than the seat. Instinctively, I scrunch my shoulders in. Being fairly short-legged, I've never complained that much about the lack of seat pitch. Coach is fine flying from the San Francisco area down to the LA area, or out to Las Vegas (and on Southwest, that's the only choice). But for longer flights across the country, or across the pond, coach can literally be painful.

Who's to blame? While part of the blame lies on the airlines who dreamed up the sardine can effect in the first place, it mostly falls on us, the consumer. We the consumer vote with their wallets. We typically go online, find the least expensive ticket from Point A to Point B, and buy that ticket. A number of years ago, American Airlines removed 7,200 seats (6.2% of its capacity) from its fleet of 700 aircraft and advertised More Space in Coach. They kept prices competitive, but we the consumer did not vote with our wallets and fill every American flight. The seats went back in.

An idea I've harbored for a long time: I call it the 16% solution. What if an airline were to configure a portion of its coach cabin something like a European "business class" cabin.

• Put five nice, wide seats in each "business class" row of a 737.
  
• As 16% of the seats in that row have been removed, charge 16% more for those seats, 16% more than the lowest-priced coach seat available at the time of purchase. This doesn't work if the airlines get greedy and try to charge full unrestricted coach. If a round-trip coast-to-coast ticket were selling for $400, I would suggest that plenty of passengers would be willing to pay $464 round-trip to be in a wide, comfortable "business class" seat.
  
• If these seats typically sell out, then increase the number of "business class" rows.
  
• Repeat until you have the configured your cabin to give the maximum number of customers exactly what they want, either a comfortable seat, or the lowest price without regard to comfort.

Frequent and not-so-frequent flyers have suffered for years because of the incredible shrinking airline seat. This is my modest proposal to make air travel comfortable while keeping it affordable. I'd love to hear your comments.


If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

shrinking airline seat Eastern National first+class economy coach pitch Allegheny Southwest Icelandic Boeing 747 Lockheed L-1011 DC-10 sardine+can More+Space+in+Coach American business+class