Coach Class Seating: Prognosis is Grim
Matt Daimler, who created Seat Guru, discussed the future of coach-class seating with The Age. As you may have guessed, the outlook is grim.
You won’t be surprised to learn that Daimler sees no end to the trend of the Incredible Shrinking Seat Pitch. Anybody who’s flown coach class, especially in North America, where the joy of flying goes to die, will notice the knee-scraping trend of diminished seat pitch.
Indeed, when the iPad first came out, my initial thought was, “this would be good for watching movies on planes, since my laptop won’t open all the way without hitting the seatback in front of me.” I never ended up getting an iPad, but still.
North American carriers aren’t even making noises about passenger comfort anymore: cabin redesign is about how many people can be crammed into each plane.
Eventually, they’ll just hand you a picture of a seat.
This really sucks for the flight crew, as passenger ire is taken out on them. I see it all the time.
Let’s turn it over to Matt Daimler:
Not long ago I would have said I dont think much is likely to change, but in the last few years weve seen airlines like Spirit say, We know its not comfortable, but if we can save you $US10 or $US20, will you do this? And people are saying yes. Theres always talk about new things, like saddle seats or partial standing seats, comfort be damned. I wouldnt be surprised if you saw something different like that in economy so long as they can get through safety issues.