Cramping your style

When John Grotland took his seat on a recent Continental Airlines Newark-to-San Francisco flight, the first thing he noticed was that something was missing.

But he didn’t know what until the passenger behind him grabbed a magazine from the seat pocket. “That’s when I felt it,” says the Cedar Knolls, N.J.-based manager for a wireless communications company. “My seat was as thin as a hammock. I could feel the guy behind me lowering his tray table, putting his knees into my back. And I could hear every word he was saying.”

Grotland also noticed that there seemed to be even more passengers than usual in the main cabin. “The airline is trying to cram more people on the plane,” he complains. “I would almost prefer being in a kennel.”

Continental acknowledges that it redesigned its economy class cabins, but insists that it didn’t add any new seats.

Welcome to the latest fad in airline design. By using new composite materials and modern ergonomics, manufacturers are reducing the thickness of their steerage-class seatbacks by as much as 40 percent. Instead of passing the additional pitch (airline-ese for legroom) to their cramped passengers, however, most airlines are just installing more seats.

There are notable exceptions. Vanguard Airlines, a Mission, Kan.-based carrier, is actually eliminating a row of cattle car seats. The late Kiwi International, a regional airline that was based in Newark, left the extra space on its Boeing 727s for travelers. Same for British Airways’ economy class, which features new sculpted seats in its Boeing 777s.

But the major American carriers see the innovations, dubbed “slimline” or “high-density back” seats, as an opportunity to boost their capacity. More than half of the economy class seats in the United States have quietly been converted during the last year, and the rest are expected to change over by 2002.

No one is more puzzled by the trend than Heather Baldwin, editor of Aircraft Interiors magazine in Reston, Va. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she told me. “Passengers have been complaining louder and louder about the fact that they’re cramped in economy class.”

But of course it does make sense. Or should I say cents?

The Federal Aviation Administration is considering new rules that would force carriers to upgrade the sturdiness of their seats. Older airline seats can withstand an impact force equal to nine times the force of gravity (denoted as 9 g’s in industry parlance); the FAA wants the new seats to handle 16 g’s.

The FAA estimates the total retrofitting cost at $950.5 million, and the airlines aren’t planning to get stuck with the bill.

“This allows airlines to put additional seats into the economy class section without sacrificing any living space,” says Sean Prendergast, a vice president for Brice Manufacturing’s seating group in Pacoima, Calif. “More seats mean that the new seats pay for themselves faster. But there are comfort issues.”

Peter Dixon, a senior partner with New York design consultant Lippincott & Margulies, agrees. And he ought to know. Not only is he a frequent traveler, but he’s also a consultant to Continental Airlines. “The airlines want the minimally accepted comfort in their seats while packing as many people into the main cabin.”

Adds Marco Lanza, an executive vice president for B/E Aerospace in Wellington, Fla., the world’s largest seat manufacturer, “The airlines don’t see much reason to give passengers more room.”

The airlines do see a reason to keep their “redesign” under wraps. Why? Imagine if word got out that the carriers were cramming even more cattle into their main cabin. Never mind all of the other issues that come with increased capacity, from cabin air quality to overall safety (imagine trying to evacuate a plane where everyone’s wedged in). I’ve got just one question: Where does this end? At what point do the airlines say “enough”? When does passenger comfort become more important than the carrier’s profit?

Maybe our airlines just don’t know when to say when.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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