LaGuardia?
Today I'm traveling from New York to Chicago
on... this plane.
It's an Airbus A319.
And I just so happened to have the blueprints or
Aircraft Characteristics, Airport and Maintenance Planning documents...
in my possession.
As you can see here: economy class
which is where I'll be sitting, has a seat pitch between 28
and 30 inches.
Seat pitch is the fancy term used to describe the distance
between where your seat begins
and the seat in front of you ends.
It's also colloquially known as legroom, for obvious reasons.
Normally there's not enough.
There’s actually an appropriate amount of space.
Every time it’s like riding with seats at the knees.
It could be better.
Airplane seats weren't always designed this way.
So why have they changed?
And how much legroom have we lost in the process?
I'm going to try and find out.
I'm 5’9” (175 cm)
which according to Google, is precisely average.
When I'm sitting down in an upright position
My buttock-to-knee length...
which, before you harass me in the comments
is the official measurements that the FAA use in its testing
ends up being about 20 inches.
And when I got on this plane...
I ended up being fairly comfortable
because I have room between my knee and the seat in front of me.
What’s that look like? Five, six inches?
Yeah... thereabouts.
That lovely voice that you just heard
is my new Australian friend: Chris.
G’day mate, y’know?
He and Brian, the two sweetest guys in the world
who I had the privilege of sitting next to
did not have the same spacious feeling that I did.
There's not enough room for me
because I'm a bit around six foot.
Bit over six foot.
And it’s hard for me to fit.
I'm not that big of a guy.
I'm 5’10”.
It's pretty, pretty crowded back here.
And that might be because we have different
buttock-to-knee ratios.
Like the space between Brian's knee and the chair in front of him
was just...
About three inches there.
And Chris’s was...
I can’t out a knife in there!
I don’t need to measure.
When I watch movies that...
take place in 50s, 60s, 70s...
everything seems so much more spacious and luxurious.
And it's true.
Take the DC-3
Which American Airlines began using in 1936.
AA’s president at the time, C.R. Smith
called it “The first airplane in the world
that can make money just by hauling passengers.”
And it was used for decades.
It seated 28 people.
And according to this 1957 Quebecair diagram
it had a luxurious seat pitch of 39 inches...
which is like ten more inches than I had on my plane to Chicago.
In the late 60s, Boeing’s 737 took over.
And it became one of the most well-known and successful
aircrafts of all time.
Iterations on the plane are still used regularly today.
These 2005 737 layout documents show that economy seats
got anywhere from 30 to 34 inches in seat pitch.
Today, the biggest competitor to the 737 is the Airbus A320...
which I flew on my way home rom Chicago to NYC.
It's about twice as long as the DC-3
and can fit about 180 passengers.
And like most planes today...
seat pitch varies within the aircraft.
On the lowest end for economy...
it hovers around 28 to 29 inches.
But there are different tiers.
Like on my flight back from Chicago to New York
we paid about $30 extra for a premium economy seat.
For research purposes only.
I took absolutely no pleasure in this.
The people I sat next to weren't as chatty
as they were on the way to Chicago.
-Good luck. -Bye!
Miss you, Chris.
But I had way more legroom.
Not only was I in Economy Plus
but I also ended up in the notoriously spacious exit row.
While, yes, I do get extra legroom.
I also have a ton of extra responsibility
in case this plane goes down.
But anyways
instead of just six inches
between the seat in front of me and my knee
I now had 14.
And it was luxurious.
As if Vox had sprung for first class for me
it would have cost $100 more than Economy Plus.
But these schematics show that I would have gotten
39 inches of legroom...
the same as the seats on the DC-3 from back in the day.
But instead...
I was here in premium economy.
As I sat there with no TV in front of me...
I began to think about the economics of comfort.
Way back in the day
they didn't charge different prices
based on whether you had a bulkhead seat or a window or an aisle seat.
That's Nicholas Rupp.
He coauthored this 2022 paper that examined
in-flight amenities by carriers provided by the US airlines.
In the past
everything would be bundled together in your ticket price.
You'd get a carry-on, a bag...
you usually got to choose your seats.
But in the early 2000s
because of rising fuel costs and a slew of difficult world events
events that made people less inclined to travel...
airliners started to unbundle all of those things...
seemingly starting with baggage fees and eventually
leading to charging customers more for seat selection.
Airlines have done a good job
at figuring out what consumers prefer
and then being able to extract
additional payment out of consumers.
Over the years, these extras have added up.
JetBlue and Spirit, for example...
have increased their overall revenues
by several percentage points through these fees alone...
and this has forced customers to decide
with their dollar what they want.
I would never pay for more legroom.
I'm just inherently going to try to buy the cheapest flight.
I'm not going to like buy like a nicer seat just for like leg room.
If it weren’t so much more I'd be willing to do that.
I feel like people that are taller should get priority seating.
It's not their choice to be tall.
Flying isn't cheap.
But if you zoom out and take a look
at the Bureau of Transportation's historical statistics...
and adjust for inflation, you can see that compared to 1993...
domestic flights have actually gotten less expensive.
Nick tells me that this is in part because of unbundling.
And even most recently it's due to innovations
like being able to have thinner seats.
Yeah, that means changing the design of the seats
to literally take out padding and depth from your seat back.
For many airlines, this space saving meant
that they were able to add an extra row of seats.
But most seats got an inch closer together.
For my experience, the seats were pretty comfortable though.
I think we will not go back in time
where they had one price for wherever you sat in coach.
I believe what we're going to see
is continue segmentation in the market
offering a variety different classes of products...
and then allow the consumer to self-select.
[PA system chimes]
As I disembarked from the plane
I thought about the seats that I had been in...
and all the people in the seats around me.
And everyone I spoke to earlier that day.
Like this one guy...
if there could be a standard that was less cramped...
I'd be thrilled.
In 2018, Congress sought a standard like this
by introducing the FAA Reauthorization Act...
which in Section 577 called for
minimum dimensions for passenger seats...
including seat pitch
as they are necessary for safety purposes.
The bill was signed into law on October 5th, 2018
but as of 2023, there are still no regulations
in part thanks to a March court decision that decided
there wasn't enough clear and indisputable evidence
that small seats materially
slow the exit of passengers in an emergency.
Some, like Senator Tammy Duckworth
think that the evacuation studies need to be redone
to include people with disabilities or increased risk of injury...
to more accurately reflect a real world evacuation.
But safety and comfort aren't necessarily intertwined.
Comfort wasn't considered in the last study
and the word doesn't show up at all in section 577.
For now, seat pitch is still up to airlines...
and comfort still comes at a cost.
Once on my honeymoon, I got upgraded to first class...
so it was quite nice.
You can enjoy that
but I'm not willing to pay that on a regular basis.
On both my flights
I was lucky enough to not have anybody I sat behind
recline their seats...
even though that's not necessarily impacting legroom...
it definitely makes me feel more claustrophobic.
What about you?
Are you pro- or anti-plane seat reclining?
Let us know in the comments below.