In what will hopefully be the beginning of a trend, Southwest airlines has announced that it will be widen seats in its Boeing 737 cabins as new planes are brought on line. Southwest has the largest inventory of 737s anywhere and is adding more planes to its fleet.
The seats will be will be 17.8 inches (45 cm) across, and the pitch will remain at 32 inches. These new seats will reduce the plane’s weight by 200 lbs (90 kg). They will be rolled out starting in 2016. Now you’ll have one more reason to fly Southwest.
More on this story from Bloomberg News at this link.
One hopes that’s a harbinger of better times…remember American’s 1990s slogan “More Room in Coach!”? Interesting to note, by the way, that while most AA domestics have been at 17.2 for economy, their new A321s are rolling out with 18″
Well, it turns out there’s a bit of a question about those wider seats…the seat may have gotten slightly wider…by shrinking the width of the armrest and measuring the distance between armrests. The actual seat…may not be wider. MORE