New planes were meant to be more comfortable. Here’s why it didn’t happen

Quick quiz for airline enthusiasts: flying economy class aboard Singapore Airlines, would you rather sit in one of the airline’s Boeing 777 aircraft or a Boeing 787? The 787 Dreamliner is newer, its cabin is pressurised to a lower altitude, which means more oxygen in your lungs, the seat back comes with a slightly larger in-flight entertainment screen and both aircraft have the same 3-3-3 seating configuration, but there’s one crucial factor that makes the 777 the aircraft I’d prefer to fly on.

Singapore Airlines, like many other carriers, has squeezed nine seats across in their Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 cabins.Credit: Bloomberg

On Singapore Airlines’ 777s, the seat width is 18 inches (45.7cm);* aboard the 787, the tape measure says 17 inches (43.2cm). That’s just 2.5 centimetres, less than half the size of a credit card from top to bottom. An inch, if you like. How First World-problematic can you get? But that 2.5cm matters.

Seat pitch, which determines the amount of legroom per seat, is the standard measure of comfort in economy class seating, but the width of the seat is just as important. When you’re reading a book or eating in a narrow seat you need to squish in your elbows and give yourself T-Rex hands, especially in the middle seat. A narrow seat also gives you less shoulder room, and a shoulder that sticks out into the aisle gets plenty of attention from passing passengers, as well as the meal trolley.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way

Boeing conceived the 787 with eight seats across in its economy cabin, with a seat width of 18.5 inches (47cm), but airlines had other ideas. By squeezing in another seat per row, they could add at least 15 seats per aircraft, and for airlines, that’s money in the bank. That meant tighter seating for passengers, but cash trumps comfort when it comes to economy class air travel.

One of the very few airlines that flies the Boeing 787-9 and most of its 787-8s with eight economy seats per row in a 2-4-2 configuration is Japan Airlines. Those seats are a comfy 47.8cm wide, and seat pitch is an equally commendable 83.8cm. However, note that one of the three versions of JAL’s Boeing 787–8 aircraft has a 3-3-3 configuration, which shrinks the seat width to just 43.2cm.

An ANA Dreamliner seen in 2011. Japan’s two major carriers feature rare Dreamliner cabins with just eight seats across in a 2-4-2 configuration.Credit: Getty Images

The same thing happened to the 787’s wide-body predecessor, the 777. Boeing designed the 777 with nine economy seats per row in mind, with a 3-3-3 configuration, and that was what airlines got when the aircraft entered service in the mid-1990s. After just a few years, the US carriers levered another seat into the mid-section and the trend caught on, especially with the introduction of the 777-300ER. Today it’s almost impossible to find any airline operating a Boeing 777 with nine seats across.

Narrower aisles, the premium economy problem and bulkier bodies

More seats mean narrower aisles. Notice how many passengers have difficulty steering their wheeled cabin bag when boarding? A full-size cabin bag has a clearance of about 5cm per side when it trundles along the aisle. The same applies to the meal trolley. Unless cabin crew are slow and careful, the trolley makes bumpy progress.

Premium economy on board Qantas. Narrower seats in economy class help make premium more attractive.

One of the factors that has contributed to seat-width shrinkage in economy cabins has been the rise of premium economy class on long-haul flights. The workhorses for these flights are the Airbus A350 and Boeing’s 787 and 777 aircraft. Premium economy seats are not much wider than economy seats – typically 5cm more. A premium economy seat aboard Singapore Airlines’ A350-900s is 48.2cm wide, just another 2.5cm more than its economy seat on the same aircraft, for a seat that costs 50 to 150 per cent more. If airlines made their economy seats wider, passengers might ask why they were paying so much more for a premium economy seat, and those seats earn far more revenue per square centimetre of floor space than an economy seat.

Another problem is that passengers are getting wider. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 64 per cent of males had a waist circumference of 94cm or more in 2007-08. In 2022, that figure had grown to 72 per cent. In that year, the average waist measurement for adult males was 99.3cm, and that’s why that average male body is a lot less comfortable sitting in a 43.2cm-wide seat.

Can seats get any squeezier?

There are limits to what even budget airlines will inflict on their passengers by way of narrower seats. Ryanair, which sets the pace for airline cost efficiency and passenger discomfort, operates its short-haul Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 aircraft with a seat width of 43.2cm, and that’s the crunch point. It would be hard to imagine any airline getting off the ground with narrower seats, although aboard American Airlines’ 777-300ERs the seat width ranges from 43.4cm down to 41.2cm – ouch!

*Source: SeatMaps.com