Airplane seat sizes reduced by three centimetres
Posted December 4, 2013 9:32 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – If you plan on catching a flight to hang out with your relatives over the holidays, prepare to scrunch!
Seats on airplanes are getting smaller.
The old standard used to be a comfy 46 centimetres across, but the latest batch of Boeing 777s now uses 43cm seats.
A 3 centimetre difference might not sound like much, but it allows airlines to squeeze an extra seat into each row, which means they can stuff dozens more passengers onto every plane.
“It’s just the way the economics in the industry work,” Brad Davies with Virtually There Travel tells News1130. ”
“Once the plane takes off, there is no advantage to having empty seats. With that in mind, they’ve reconfigured aircraft to accommodate as many people as they possibly can.”
Davies says this means comfort will come with a price for travellers.
“They’ll be having a bargain basement seat, and they have different names for it, like slim line or economy seats,” he explains. “They’ll also have the opportunity to sell you for a few dollars now to sit in the emergency row or in business class.”
He says having more seats on a plane could also lead to lower fares.
