A s part of this press release which became available earlier today, an announcement from Southwest Airlines has declared that the airline “has selected the Customer seats for its future Boeing 737-800 and 737 MAX aircraft deliveries. The carrier, in partnership with Boeing, will be the first to roll out the new seats, beginning mid-2016, on new deliveries of its Boeing 737-800. B/E Aerospace, who designed and engineered the seats, unveiled the new product today at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany.”
Bob Jordan — who is the executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Southwest Airlines — said that “The new aircraft seats are the widest economy seats available in the single-aisle 737 market, and offer a unique design that gives our Customers what they asked for: more space. Serving as the launch customer for this seat is just one of several upcoming milestones related to our bold, new look launched in September of last year, and is specifically aimed at enhancing our Customer Experience.”
That sounds nice — until I read this article written by Marshall Jackson of MJ on Travel. “From a personal perspective, the seats look nice, but how tightly they pack them in will tell us how comfortable they really are.”
After reading that quote and thinking about it, if I had a choice, I would probably rather have more seat pitch — which is defined as the distance from any point on one seat to the exact same point on the seat either in front of or behind it — than a wider seat. I like to be able to stretch my legs out; and I am not obese…
…although a narrower seat means more of a chance that an obese person will spill over into my seat, which I do not like — but that topic is better suited for the debate pertaining to obese airline passengers.
A wider seat or more seat pitch: which would you rather have on your flight if you had a choice?
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