Alex McWhirter examines topical business travel issues. This month: Are comfort standards slipping in economy class?
It would seem so judging by recent trends, as airlines seek to squeeze more people into the lower cabin.
The Boeing 747 was the last modern plane to promise economy class passengers decent comfort. In his 1993 book Wide-Body: Making of the 747, Clive Irving recalled how engineers of the late Pan Am (the B747’s first operator) asked Boeing to provide wider economy seats.
Pan Am wanted more space for its passengers, Irving wrote, because “the average American of that time [the late 1960s] was taller and wider and was outgrowing the fifties’ generation of airline seats”.
As a result, the Pan Am B747s had nine-across seating (configured 2-4-3) with seat cushions that were two inches wider than those on existing narrow-bodied planes. Legroom was about 34 inches.
Other airlines were happy to follow Pan Am’s lead. Fares were much higher in those days and with the B747 representing a huge step up in capacity, the world’s airlines were worried the extra seats would not be filled. But by 1980, the age of mass travel had arrived, fuelled by cheaper fares. So to carry their new passengers profitably, the airlines began squeezing in more seats. That passenger-friendly nine-across B747 layout quickly became ten-across (3-4-3), while legroom was gradually cut from 34 inches to as little as 31.
What happened with the B747 is being repeated with the B777 and, as seems likely, the forthcoming B787 Dreamliner, originally billed as a “game changer”. A number of B777 carriers are busy moving from nine to ten-across seating, while future B787 operator Ethiopian Airlines says it will move to nine-across (3-3-3) in place of Boeing’s recommended eight-across layout. Although no other B787 purchasers will reveal their seating layouts at this time, industry gossip suggests that many are looking at nine-across configurations.
Ten-across on a B777 or nine-across on a B787 is denser than on a B747 because the first two planes have narrower cabins. Still, the B787 has the advantage of better air quality and larger windows.
Another dense layout, this time on the 330 and 340 Airbuses, is seen on Malaysia’s Air Asia X. The budget airline has begun installing nine-across (3-3-3) seating (as against the present eight-across 2-4-2) on its fleet of A330s and A340s (see Upfront, page 10). And such comfort deterioration is seen at a time when the average traveller has become larger.
The airlines maintain that new designs for seating and trolleys mean passengers should not notice any difference. But there is no escaping the fact that armrests and aisles will be narrower and there will be more passengers using the overhead lockers and washrooms.
Passenger space is squeezed in these days of ever cheaper tickets because the holy grail of airline economics is the cost of an available seat mile (a measure of a flight’s passenger-carrying capacity). No airline can afford to allow a rival to have an advantage in this regard, so the more passengers on a plane, the lower the seat mile cost.
When discussing the issue on LBC 97.3FM radio recently, Tim Jeans, managing director of Monarch Airlines, said. “The reality in air transport is that you get what you pay for. Airlines would like to offer passengers more space and more recline, but the economics of the industry are stacked against them.”
Tim Claydon, commercial adviser to Air Asia X, maintains dense seating layouts are necessary. “It improves the overall economics of operating the aircraft so that we can maintain the lowest possible fares,” he says.
Until now, in-flight entertainment (IFE) has acted as a distraction to help passengers forget their surroundings. But even this “drug” is threatened. Air Asia X will not fit IFE to its new generation of seats as it reckons more passengers prefer their own, probably more sophisticated, entertainment to the airline offering. Claydon says: “[For the airlines]
IFE is nothing more than a ‘sunk’ cost. In future, we feel there will be an increase in customers bringing their own devices on board.”
So will regular economy class ever improve? There was much excitement on Business Traveller’s online forum when Air New Zealand announced it would be installing so-called “lie-flat” seats in its economy cabins (visit businesstraveller.com/tags/air+new+zealand for more details). But closer inspection suggests the Skycouch product is aimed at couples and families. It is unsuitable for two business travellers unless you want to cuddle the company chairman. It also helped to distract from the fact that the rest of the economy cabin was being fitted with ten-across seating.
Its cost – two and a half times the economy price – is not competitive for the solo business traveller compared with buying a premium economy or business class seat. And in future, they would seem to be the only available options for executives seeking decent comfort.
What do you think? Have your say at businesstraveller.com/discussion
