Just when you say something halfway nice about them, the airlines’ bosses go and cut you off at the knees.
In this case, almost literally.
Late Tuesday American Airlines president Robert Isom sent a note to all bajillion million members of American’s once-meaningful frequent fliers program, AAdvantage, telling them the “good news.” American will not be cutting the leg room in the last three rows of its new Boeing 737 Max-8 aircraft (the first four of 100 on order will join the fleet this fall) to a torturously narrow 29 inches of pitch. No airline in America that operates full-sized jets (and not named Spirit) currently sells seats with less than 30 inches of pitch. Spirit, an ultra-discounter that takes the “no frills” concept very seriously, long ago broke the mythical 30-inch pitch barrier. Some of its seats go as narrow as 28 inches.
And it appears that Spirit will continue, at least for a while longer, as the only carrier offering seats with less than 30 inches of pitch. The brain trust at American heard our cries of anguish and outrage and are responding with what they think is the perfect answer. The last three rows of their new 737 MAX planes will have a 30 inches of pitch. Technically “pitch” is the distance from one spot on a seat to the exact same spot on seats ahead and behind it, but it effectively is a proxy for the amount of room you’ll have to stuff your legs into. Maybe 29 inches of pitch is not bad if you’re 5’4. But if you’re 6’3” like me, well, be sure to bring your Aspirin, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Naproxena Sodium, or other preferred pain remedies onboard with you.
Isom, in his note Tuesday, explained that American is making the change to its 737 MAX seating plan in response to “a lot of ‘feedback’ from both customers and team members” that management received in the weeks since announcing its brain-dead plan to sell three rows – 18 seats – that have only 29 inches of pitch.
Yeah, I bet they did.
Isom went on his note to explain that “It is clear that today, airline customers feel increasingly frustrated by their experiences and less valued when they fly.”
Wow! That may be the first time in recorded history that an airline leader actually admitted that his carrier had pushed his customers too far, even though that’s progressively been the case for a dozen or more years now.
“We can be leaders,” Isom added, “in helping to turn around that perception, and that includes reviewing decisions that have significant impact on the flying experience.”
But what began as a rare, honest admission that airlines are, in fact, abusing their customers, went sour when Isom explained how American is going about the preservation of that one extra inch in the back of their new MAXes.
It’s really ingenious, in a demented sort of way.
They’re taking one inch away from every other standard row in coach. Instead of 31 inches of pitch, all coach seats on the AA MAXes will have only 30 inches. Put another way, American is going to dial back the pain-o-meter in the last three rows from the “Temporary Paralysis” position setting to just “Excruciating.” But to do that the world’s largest airline also will be dialing it up a notch on the rest of us, from “Barely Tolerable for an Hour Flight” to “Excruciating.”
Thanks, guys. Please try not to do us any more favors like that.
Sadly, for me at least, when I heard this bit of “good news” I’d just finished writing my other commentary that appears here at Forbes.com today in which I’d sorta half-way absolved U.S. airline senior executives for at least some of the responsibility for their recent, staggering lapses in customer service and mind boggling operational and/or technology breakdowns. Read my piece, and you’ll see that my thesis is that we travelers are at least somewhat to blame because we’ve become so addicted to cheap air travel that we’ll put up with just about any indignities and discomforts. Then American goes and drops this stink bomb on us. Sheesh!
To be fair, configuring airplane seating is a giant math and economics problem. How do you get the exact right number of seats onboard given the limited amount of space, the dimensions and quirks of the human body, and the understanding that not all seats are worth the same amount of money to every passenger. Up front, the high-rollers and super frequent flier corporate travelers sit in the relative comfort of first class, or business class as some airlines call what the rest of us call first class on domestic flights. Then, just behind that thin curtain that must be made out of gold, or titanium, or Rapunzel’s hair or something there’s the so-called “Economy Plus” seats; ordinary coach seats with two or three extra inches of leg room. American calls this little section “Main Cabin Extra” on its flights. Then there’s regular old “Economy” (or “Main Cabin” on American) seats from there all the way to the back. This section is also known by its more technical term: “Stearage.”
Even back there in the back, where the great unwashed masses (those making less than $150,000 a year, typically) sit, there’s a pecking order. Frequent fliers get their choice of seats first. That’s why if you’re an infrequent flier, or somebody flying on the absolute cheapest ticket available, you sit way in the back and have little chance at snagging any overhead space for your bag. Back there you also get to wait 15 minutes just for the aisle in front to clear so you can get off. And, if you’ve been a particularly bad little boy or girl, or just a real cheapskate who bought the lowest priced ticket available, you get to sit both at the back of the plane and in the middle seat. It’s a bit like leasing an apartment in an outhouse basement. It’s cheap, but… .
For the airlines the idea is to get every person to pay the absolute maximum price they’re willing to pay by creating a temporary (one hopes) caste system aboard every flight. And how much you’re willing to pay, and how often you fly with that particular carrier, serve as the two determinants of which caste to which you’ll be assigned.
Well, now American has gone and thrown a monkey wrench in that system, or at least in the bottom half of that system. On its 737 MAX planes all economy (Main Cabin) passengers will be treated with equal disregard and disdain.
Thirty inches of pitch may be only one inch less than the 31 inches that was to be the standard for almost all of them, but that one lost inch is an incredibly valuable inch. It’s the difference between you’re feet starting to tingle after 150 minutes in flight and their going so numb that you’ll have to crawl on your belly down the aisle to get off the plane. If you’re lucky you’ll have all the feeling back in them by the time you reach your hotel.
Of course, this change undermines the original economic rationale for the 29 inch seats in the back. Their mere presence on the market almost certainly would have coaxed even bottom-feeding travelers to pony up an extra $10 or $15 bucks to avoid the 29-inch experience. Now, why would anyone pay extra to sit in a 30 inch pitch seat in the front of the economy section when I could save those extra bucks and sit in a 30 inch pitch seat in the back of economy? The pain’s just the same. And at least in the back you’ll have more time for the feeling to come back into your feet before you have to walk down the aisle toward the door.
In order to cover its mistake in announcing 29-inch pitch seating in the first place, American will be removing one row of “Main Cabin Extra” seats – six total seats – and replacing them with one row of of normal “Main Cabin” seats on its 737 MAX jets. That slight change will allow it to continue to offer 172 total seats on its MAXes. None of them will be 29-inch pitch torture devices. But every one of the Main Cabin seats will offer a measly 30 inches of pitch.
I can barely wait to sit in one of those.
