Ever tried to pamper your passengers by giving them really nice premium or luxury seating? Well... me too!
... and it works quite ok, if you are flying longhaul, you install some nice premium business-class seats, and maybe even the luxury first-class-suite on those select flights!
But ever wanted to have your economy passengers fly a bit better and not feel the knees of the guy behind in ones back? It just ruins all economic considerations!
So lets take a closer look at seats: there is HD, Standard, Prem and Lux.
Taking as an example the Airbus A320:
with HD seating one fits up to 180 passengers. Considering the increments, its 6-abreast seating with 30 rows.
That sounds alright, that translates into regular 30in seat pitch... one can call it "high density", but actually the same what is offered by the european "legacy-carriers" offer, and much more than the regular "low-cost" seat of 28 or 29in (makes another or even two rows of 6 seats on an A320).
Now if we raise that quality to "Standard" Economy, we have a maximum seating of 156 passengers. Translating into 6 abreast / 26 rows.
In regards of seat, that is a rather comfortable 34 inch pitch. Sounds like not much difference, but thats actually more, than some airlines (KLM etc) offer on "premium economy" on european flights.
If we raise it an increment further, we get to "Premium":
The capacity of the A320 goes down to 115 seats, at 5 abreast / 23 rows.
Now, i dont know any airline that offers 5 abreast seating on an A320. but considering the amount of rows, it would translate into a 39in pitch!
Going further to "Luxury Eco Seating":
The capacity is at 48 / 3 abreast. 16 rows, 3 abreast. A pitch of 56 inches is not all that impressive (for first class). But the double seat width compared to HD/Standard seating is more than is offered on most narrowbody first/business offers (usually 4 abreast).
Similar values are found on most planes.
A "Standard"-seat takes 16% more space than a HD seat. A Premium seat already takes 60% more space than the HD, and the Lux takes 3.6 times as much space as an HD-seat.
My request:
Make realistic seats for the travel classes! For example:
For Economy,
a 28in HD,
a 30in Std,
a 32in Premium and
a 35in Luxury seat would be alright.
So instead of 180/156/115/48, on the A320 it would be 186/180/172/150, all in 6 abreast.
For a B763 it could be 8 abreast in HD, and 7 in the other levels. Similarly for the 777/787/330, there could be one extra seat abreast for HD seating per row.
Likewise, for business-class, one could offer similarly
a 32in seat (like in most european service, 6 abreast);
a "Std" similar to the recliners in "first" on american legacy carriers with 36 inch pitch (4 abreats on a 737/A320),
a 170° reclining seat, 58 in pitch, like common in older european business class aircraft (7 abreast in a 777)
a 6'5'' full flat bed (5 or 6 abreast in a 777)
And for first-class, similarly:
the last three of the business class
+ a luxury suite.
The whole idea of this is, that there is actually some selection in seating, since the seats available are oftentimes not justifiable and unrealistic. So in practice, one could just altogether remove the last two seat groups in eco and hardly anyone would even notice it, i think. Changing the seat-types would make for more realistic and more possible selections and options.
Before people start discussing "but there is Premium Economy!":
There is no premium economy. There is economy, there is business, and there is first. Companies didnt let their employees travel first anymore, so business became bigger and better, substituting the first on many airlines (and i am not talking about american "first"). The gap between business and eco grew wider, so the airlines made "premium economy", which is actually the new business class, and business is the new first.