Think Economy’s cramped? Tough luck, says airline President

People traveling by airplane. Focus is on young woman text messaging.

United Airlines’ President, Scott Kirby, didn’t hold back when it came to the future of Economy, speaking at a recent employee meeting.

In fact, according to Skift, Kirby flat out denied United would rival American Airlines – who have reduced seat pitch on some new aircraft – by bringing more room to economy.

“The short answer is no,” Kirby told employees at a town hall meeting in Cleveland.

United has refused to comment on whether it might copy American Airlines in reducing space for Economy passengers, although Skift claims a source close to United reckons they’ll be cutting back pretty soon.

Kirby was the President of American Airlines until August 2016, and while he didn’t explicitly tell his employees at the meeting that they’d be shaving back seat pitch, he did say passengers need to get used to smaller spaces.

“Seat pitch has come down,” Kirby said, per Skift.

“But seat pitch has come down because that’s what customers voted with their wallets that they wanted.

“I know everyone would tell you, ‘I would like more seat pitch.’ But the history in the airline industry is every time airlines put more seat pitch on, customers choose the lowest price.”

“If you take a row of seats off an airplane — you take four per cent of the seats off the airplane — it costs the same amount to fly the airplane as it did before,” Kirby said, per Skift.

“You’re burning the same amount of fuel. You pay the pilots the same. Maintenance is the same. So you have to charge four per cent more to make that break even.

“Customers have to be willing to pay more if they want more seat pitch. And the evidence is that they aren’t willing to.”

For now, most of United’s planes have pitch of 30 or 31 inches, with ‘pitch’ being the measurement of distance from one seat space to the same space on the next. This, while not directly related to legroom, still usually means less wriggle room for your legs, and knees, depending on how tall you are.

Kirby might be taking note of American Airlines’ previous cock-up on space in economy, when they removed over 7000 seats from its fleet to ensure seat pitch of 34+ inches in most Economy seats.

AA claimed it received “thousands of letters, emails and phone calls from travellers saying thanks for the comfort”, Skift reports, but by 2004 the “more room throughout coach” program was scrapped because – you guessed it – customers weren’t prepared to pay for it.

Kirby did acknowledge that customers complain to him about losing legroom, but said he usually responds the same way, recommending they upgrade to Economy Plus, where seat pitch is generally between 34 and 36 inches.

“I say, ‘Pay a little more and you get can get seat pitch,” he said, per Skift.

“If it’s worth it to you, you can do it. But if you just want the cheapest fare, this is what it is.”

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Latest comments

John McDonald says:
May 30, 2017 at 2:32 pm
the airlines marketing people should highlight this, although, airlines that aren’t low cost, have many aircraft types in their fleet, with allsorts of seats & amounts of legroom, whereas LCC’s & ULCC’s generally have 1 aircraft type with same seating in all aircraft.
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Hannah Edensor says:
May 30, 2017 at 1:47 pm
Hear hear, John! You should write them a letter!
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John McDonald says:
May 30, 2017 at 1:26 pm
stop talking seat pitch, it is NOT a measure of legroom, as that depends on how thick the seat backs are. You can increase legroom without changing seat pitch, by replacing old seats with thick backs, with new thin backed seats, which are often more comfortable anyway.
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