Spirit Airlines, at least, is honest about the tight quarters on its planes. “We’re a cozy airline,” it says on its website. “We add extra seats to our planes so we can fly with more people. This lowers ticket prices for everyone, just like a car pool.” It’s not news that airlines have been squeezing more — and smaller — seats into the backs of their planes. The people who run revenue departments — want more seats on planes. They’re up against the marketing people, who are trying to act as their passengers’ advocates.
“To accommodate the airlines, seat manufacturers have been skimming and trimming from just about every dimension, relocating the seatback pocket, replacing padding with elastic mesh and whittling down the armrests,” writes The New York Times (Nov. 7, 2017). While low-cost airlines like Spirit have narrowed the distance between rows of seats to as little as 28 inches, most of the big carriers have kept the distance (seat pitch) at 30 inches. Anything less pushes already travelers to their limits.
“We’ve been using a lot of advanced materials, a lot of composite materials, to allow the actual physical structure to get smaller,” said the VP of a seat manufacturer. “We’ve also removed a lot of the hard points in the seat and gone to fabric suspension systems, leading to seats more akin to ergonomic desk chairs. The less size that the seat structure itself takes up, the more space that’s left over for the passenger.” Or, as the case may be, for more passengers.
Airlines contend that improved ergonomics and, in some cases, slightly wider seats make up for a tighter pitch. But passengers have been getting taller and wider, and regulations still stipulate that planes have to be able to be evacuated in just 1.5 minutes. The seats were originally designed for men who averaged 5′ 10″ and 170 pounds. Right now, the average man is just under 200 pounds.
Classroom discussion questions:
1. How is ergonomics an OM issue?
2. Make the case for more space–then for tighter seats.