What a difference an inch makes

By A.B.

AIRBUS has thrown itself into the debate about comfort in modern airliners by calling for a minimum seat width of 18 inches in long-haul economy cabins.

Why is the planemaker piping up now? Kevin Keniston, the new head of passenger comfort, points out that “other manufacturers” have started reverting to the 17-inch “crusher” seats that were found on airliners of the 1950s. But Airbus argues that this ignores the fact that passengers are getting bigger and long-haul flights longer, which combine to make the economy-class experience increasingly uncomfortable.

Airbus's case is backed up by research from the London Sleep Centre, which reports that sleep quality—as measured by the number and frequency of disturbances to the brain waves during the night—in an 18-inch seat is 53% better than in a 17-inch seat, and that the time taken to fall asleep in the larger seat is almost 15% less. Airbus also points out that other industries are adapting to their customers' widening posteriors, viz the 19.7-inch seats filling the new Wembley football stadium (four inches wider than those at the old stadium) and the 22-inch seats found in modern American theatres (one inch wider than the 1995 average).

Airbus has obvious reasons to try to associate itself with a push for comfortable seating, but the final decision on such matters rests with the airlines. Seat design is an area where they usually take the lead, as we explained recently. Airbus shows its customers the layout possibilities with 18-inch seats (18½ for the A380), but it is up to the airline to get the seats made up before getting Airbus to install them in the airline's preferred pattern. Airbus fuselages are designed with 18-inch seats in mind, but there is nothing to stop a customer putting in 17-inch "crushers" if it decides that economics trumps passenger comfort. In an industry of razor-thin margins, that's a reasonable call to make.

While all passengers would be grateful for 18-inch seats, or something even wider, this is an issue that should perhaps be left to the market to settle. It's easy enough for passengers to find out the seat widths offered by various airlines: they can look at this page on Seatguru, for example. If they ignore planes with 17-inch seats, the airlines concerned will install wider seats fairly quickly. However, on a lot of routes the choice of carrier is limited, and 17-inch seating may be the only option. So with that in mind, and based also on the belief that it's always good to make the industry re-examine its relentless push towards reduced levels of service and comfort, Gulliver sonorously welcomes this intervention by Airbus.