Some Airlines Taking Steps to Stretch Legroom

If I were secret advisor to the movers and shakers in the U.S. airline industry, I’d long ago have pinned this message to their desktops: “It’s the legroom in coach, stupid.” In my experience, that’s what we coach passengers complain about most.

But here’s the problem. The airlines have filled record numbers of seats in the last five years virtually ignoring such advice.

Through those years, the average seat pitch--the distance between your seat back and the seat back of the passenger in front of you--has remained at 31 to 32 inches for domestic flights. That’s a tight squeeze. Yet the seats sold and profits rolled in because there were more travelers who wanted to save money than who wanted to gain space.

So the airlines have squeezed us and kept fares down. The Air Transport Assn., the Washington, D.C.-based airline trade group, reports that the average domestic air fare in 1999 was 0.7% lower than in 1998. Since 1994, ATA figures show, air fare increases have been outpaced by inflation.

But now, just when we seemed doomed to life with somebody’s knee realigning our lumbar vertebrae and a dinner tray wedged under our chin, here comes encouraging news.

On Feb. 3, American Airlines announced it would add 3 inches of legroom to most of the coach seats in its fleet. This means ripping out 7,200 seats on more than 700 planes. At least to start with, the airline is not boosting its coach prices--neither the full fares (used mostly by business travelers on short notice) or the more affordable restricted coach fares (favored by most leisure travelers).

It’s a gamble. American is betting that we’re so fed up that we’ll abandon other airlines to gain a few inches if the fare is basically the same.

American isn’t the only one looking at the legroom issue. In August, United moved to create a roomier (and pricier) area in the front rows of coach. In late January, British Airways unveiled a new class of seat, World Traveller Plus, aimed at luring coach travelers who will pay more for more space but who aren’t quite ready to foot the cost of a business-class ticket. (The new fares are still being decided, but a spokeswoman says they’ll cost about 20% more than full-fare coach--which could be more than three times the amount paid for the most highly restricted coach tickets.)

If you’re a leisure traveler who can’t imagine paying $1,000 for a domestic ticket or $2,000 for a ticket to Europe, American’s news is the biggest. When the work is done, American says, 58% of its coach seats will have a pitch of 34 or 35 inches, in a few cases 36 inches.

The cost of American’s physical conversion is estimated at $70 million. And in order to increase space for more than 75,000 coach-class seats, the carrier will remove about 6.4% of its coach capacity. The idea is that this move will attract passengers from competitors and fill some of the 30% of seats that now go empty, says Al Becker, an American spokesman.

“More room in coach is the one thing that travelers want more than just about anything else,” Becker says. “Customers clearly are unhappy with the airlines today. Customers have gotten to the point where they really don’t believe that airlines care about them. And we can’t live with that.”

American started converting jets in late January and expects to have half its domestic jets (it has 609, each with coach and first-class sections) completed by November. Work on international airplanes (98 of them, each with coach, business and first-class sections) will begin this fall and will be completed next year.

Aboard American’s MD-80 jets (which make up more than a third of its fleet and carry about 130 passengers), two rows (10 seats) will be eliminated from each aircraft. The first converted MD-80 flew from Dallas to LAX on the morning of Feb. 12.

When word of American’s move traveled, United parried with a reminder that its “Economy Plus” campaign came first, back in August.

That program is aimed primarily at business travelers who will pay extra in exchange for access to a new, roomier area in the front of the coach cabin. The area will include 36 to 90 seats, depending on the plane, and those seats will have pitches of 35 to 36 inches.

The cost? To get one of the new seats, travelers must buy a full-fare economy ticket or be a Mileage Plus premier member (which requires 25,000 miles flown within the last year on United or its Star Alliance partners). Among those who pay extra and premier members it’s first come, first served to get the roomier seats, so if the section is already full on your flight, you either A) pay less and get less space or B) get no advantage from your premier status.

Checking flights in late February, United spokesman Matthew Triaca and I found that a full-fare economy ticket for an LAX-Chicago round trip cost $2,768. The lowest restricted coach fare, meanwhile, was $258. For those keeping score, that’s a cost of $502 per added inch.

By early February, United had converted 154 planes (about 40% of its fleet) to the new setup. The work is to be completed by April on domestic aircraft. The airline says it’s studying a similar move on its international fleet.

Meanwhile, British Airways says its new cabin class, World Traveller Plus, will offer more space and facilities than other economy products, and it will let these passengers carry on twice as much luggage. Prices may be about 20% above full-fare coach, as at United. (Some sample numbers: As of late February, the carrier’s lowest round-trip restricted fare from LAX to London was $408. For a full-fare coach ticket on the same flight: $1,868.)

The reconfigured British Airways cabins are expected to enter service in late summer on the New York-London route. (For LAX, the target date is spring 2001.) They will include up to 40 seats in this new class aboard the carrier’s Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft. The seat pitch in those sections will be 38 inches--up from 31 in British Airways’ coach, or “World Traveller,” class. The new sections will also include seat-back video monitors and outlets for laptops.

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Christopher Reynolds welcomes comments and suggestions, but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or send e-mail to chris.reynolds@latimes.com.