I would love to be a fly on the wall at a corporate board meeting of United Airlines when they are discussing redesigning the floor plan of their planes. I imagine there has to be a lot of number crunching. United thinks in terms of big numbers. It’s the world’s third largest airline, after American and Delta. It operates 4,500 flights per day. Roughly speaking, that’s something like 1.6 million flights a year. Those aren’t all 747s, but just for the sake of very rough approximate calculations, let’s use those numbers. With 1.6 million flights, we can approximate and still get some idea of the mass of the operation.
The Seat Map of a United 747 shows 404 seats, 14 in First class, 73 in Business Class and 260 in Economy class (88 Economy Plus, 172 Economy). The plane has 61 rows of seats. The first 10 are for first class and business class; then you have 50 rows of economy class. Most of those rows have 10 seats. The last row in the plane has four seats, and the next three ahead of it have eight each. There are four rows around the restrooms of six seats each. Let’s underestimate roughly that you have about 50 rows. If you cut an inch of space off each one, you could produce about 50 inches of additional space. That could be enough to add another row of seats.
United’s seat pitch is 31 inches. Pitch is the distance from the base of your seat to the base of the seat in front of you. Freeing up 50 inches of space would make room for an additional row. Another row could seat 10 more passengers. If you could squeeze 10 more passengers onto each of your 1.6 million flights a year, that’s roughly 16 million more fares you could receive a year. At a few hundred dollars per fare, that ain’t chicken feed. Of course, that leaves you, the passenger, only a very unforgiving rectangular prism in which to function.
So, you can see the motivation for cutting those inches to the bare minimum. To you the passenger, it’s only one inch less of space for your knees. To United, it’s millions of dollars. You know how much corporations love that bottom line. They have to, of course—that’s the mandate of a corporation. So, although your knees may be bruised by the time you land, or you may get no sleep and be on the verge of killing your neighbors over turf wars on the armrests, you can take comfort in knowing that those inches are adding mightily to the airline’s bottom line.
To be fair, when the airlines have tried offering more space per seat, consumers don’t reward them for it. In the great majority of cases, all consumers are looking at when the book is price. When they are actually on board flying, and they are crunched together, they think of the legroom, but then it’s too late. And by the time they book another flight, they are just thinking price again.
On my second attempt to fly to South Africa a couple of weeks ago, I was seated in a middle seat way back at the back of the plane. On my first attempt to fly United to South Africa, the plane had sat on the tarmac from boarding time around 7:30 p.m. till the flight was canceled and we were all turned loose at midnight. The next flight I was able to get was three days later and, in all the chaos, I didn’t manage to get an aisle seat. So, I got to experience the full range of pleasure of a middle seat on a 15-hour flight.
On my left was a small man, lucky for me. On my right was a big man. He was not abnormally large, but economy class airline seats are not designed for anyone mid-sized or above. There’s only one small armrest between two people, so you have to work that out between you, and the battle is almost always carried on without words.
The man on my right, squeezed between me and the window, was spilling over into my space constantly. It wasn’t his fault. I can’t blame him for having arms, and there was nowhere to put them.
The seats could be pushed back (I won’t say “reclined”) about an inch and a half, so I was pretty much vertical for 16 hours on an overnight flight. My knees were touching the seat in front of me practically the whole time.
Midway through the flight, they brought us a plastic bag with two rolls of crumbling, stiff white bread, sliced across the middle with some turkey and mustard stuffed inside. It was the kind of flight experience that condenses all your consciousness into one thought hour after hour: when will this be over?
I made it. I had a great trip in South Africa and then it was time for the return flight, which was to be about an hour longer than the one going eastward. I was not relishing the idea. But my travel agent had performed some magic and got me upgraded to “Economy Plus.” Plus what? I wondered. When I boarded, I found out.
Credit where due. It was a huge contrast to my experience on the way over. I was more than pleasantly surprised. I was giddy.
I was seated in the front row of the Economy Plus section, right in front of the bulkhead that separates Business Class from the rest of us. I was in the middle seat of the middle section, but this time it didn’t really matter. There was enough room to get up and get over to the aisle without having to ask anyone to move.
My seat had real arm rests on both sides, twice as wide as in Economy class, and separate from those of my neighbors. It wasn’t cold steel as in Economy class. It was plastic, and had a little give. I didn’t have to fight my neighbors for the armrests.
The top of the armrest opened, allowed you to pull out your tray table, and unfold it over your lap. It was so ingeniously collapsed into a small space, it was a little bit like a puzzle figuring out how to unfold it.
The entertainment screen also unfolded from the armrest, could be pulled out, and twisted around to face you. The accommodations were really closer to those of Business Class than to Economy Class. I guess it sounds better to say “Economy Plus” than “Business Minus.”
They actually brought us a good meal, a really good meal. It was salmon with tomato sauce and a nice salad, and—unbelievably—an artichoke. This was high style.
Breakfast was… wait for it… steak and eggs! With fresh strawberries, cantaloupe, pineapple, and musk melon. It was really good, I have to say.
The onboard staff had been good both ways, really excellent, but the product on the way back bore almost no resemblance to the experience going over.
So, what can I say? United can do it, if it wants to. It was a revelation. Anyway, it was a great experience.
Thanks, United. You hit a home run this time.
David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.