Who loves airplanes as much as I do? That\u2019s right, not many of you. All that cramped seating, crying babies, invasive airport security, surly flight attendants\u2014and those are just a few of flying\u2019s pleasantries. Some say flying isn\u2019t what it used to be. We\u2019ve packed passengers into metal tubes like livestock, lowered the wages of regional pilots to a $16,000 base salary, and raised the prices of tickets. But look on the brightside: your flight is guaranteed to always be on time seventy percent of the time.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s throw it back to 1972. You\u2019re cruising over a picturesque, snow-capped North Pole en route to Paris. Passengers in the lounge happily engage in conversation with each other. Complimentary champagne, an offer from the captain to come up to the cockpit mid-flight, and plush leather seats wide enough for two.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s 2017. All that hullabaloo. Nobody wants to fly. Nobody wants to smell the body odor of the gentleman spilling into your seat. It\u2019s a drag. Your average octogenarian might argue yesterday\u2019s luxuries were thrown out the window in favor of new seating configurations and fewer amenities, all in favor of maximizing profit. Lost to the wind is the Golden Era of aviation, lost is that 1972 flight to Paris.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re wrong. The past several years have witnessed an incredible influx of new aircraft onto the market. We\u2019re talking planes with better fuel efficiency, longer range, more comfortable, and quiet cabins, and twenty-five percent larger windows (this amenity applies to those passengers in window seats only. If you are in an exit row and do not feel comfortable in the event of an emergency, please notify the flight crew immediately<\/i>). These new changes are relatively new in the industry, so chances are you\u2019ll just be starting to notice them in your flying experience.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get into it. Airbus unveiled their brand-new A350 airliner in 2015, an airplane built from the ground up. Building completely new airframes is almost unheard of nowadays\u2014Boeing and Airbus, the two leading manufacturers, often improve upon existing designs instead of constructing altogether new ones. Geared toward longer range international flights, A350 has already caught the attention of fifty airlines worldwide; 858 orders have been placed as of September 2017. But Boeing started ground up airframe production even before Airbus. Prior to the release of the Airbus A350 in 2015, Chicago-based manufacturer Boeing Company released the revolutionary 787 Dreamliner, 600 of which have already entered into service with airlines around the world.<\/p>\n
Bombardier plunged into the action with its release of a new range of C-Series aircraft meant for short-haul regional flights. Swiss International Airlines already operates the C-Series 100 and 300 variants on European routes. New innovations in aircraft manufacturing means airlines will begin to replace aging fleets. New planes offer a host of features that will redefine your travel experience.<\/p>\n
Following JetBlue\u2019s introduction of modern in-flight entertainment (IFE) in the 2000s, seatback televisions have become standard across many American carriers, including Delta, JetBlue, United, and American Airlines. Smaller planes are not always equipped with seatback entertainment, but often offer wifi connectivity and other forms of electronic entertainment. Today, JetBlue offers over one hundred channels on A321s and thirty-six channels on A320s and ERJ-190s. Passengers in the 70s certainly weren\u2019t enjoying DirectTV at 35,000 feet. Advances in technology and the competitive nature of airline entertainment means that entertainment systems will continue to improve. In fact, airlines serving under the banner of Delta Connection (Endeavour Air, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, Skywest, etc) have moved toward a different form of in-flight entertainment. Using Gogo, a company that provides wifi on planes not equipped with seatback televisions, customers can search through a variety of streaming videos available over the wifi network. Gogo is revolutionizing<\/a> entertainment in the airline industry by allowing passengers to stream the content they want to watch directly to their tablets. Whether through seatback television or on your own personal electronic device, there are more options in television channels, movies, games, and satellite radio than ever before.<\/p>\n Improved in-flight entertainment doesn\u2019t mean your odiferous seatmate won\u2019t be infringing on your personal space anymore, nor does it mean the crying baby kicking your seat back will suddenly cease to exist. So what can<\/i> we expect? Let\u2019s take a look at seat width, a standard measure of spaciousness and comfort.<\/p>\n The spacelessness of seats in the airline industry is criminal. Let us consider a Delta Airlines 747-400<\/a>. For you non-avgeeks, that\u2019s a long range airliner with around 376 seats (depending on the seating configuration) designed for international travel. It\u2019s not your average regional jet. \u00a0On nine-plus hour overseas flights aboard Delta\u2019s 747s, the standard seat width is 17.2 inches in both economy and Delta Comfort + classes. To put that in perspective, Delta\u2019s Embraer Regional Jet 170 (ERJ-170) offers 18.3 inches of width per seat. These regional jets service shorter routes with fewer passengers, meaning that your hour-long flight aboard many regional jets could offer a 6.4% increase in seat width over the seat aboard that long haul international flight.<\/p>\n A fancy term for legroom, seat pitch means the distance from the back of your seat to the front of the seat in front of you. Legroom is one of the few, if not only, measures that indicates airplanes are getting even more cramped. Remember, some of that distance is useless because passengers\u2019 legs cannot extend underneath and all the way to the front of the seat in front of them. Seat pitch never exceeds thirty-one inches on the variety of different types of planes in the United Airlines fleet, including the ERJ-175, A320, 757, 767-300ER, and 777-300ER (all planes that have been on the market for a while). This sample of planes is representative of the fleet\u2019s entire demographic; it includes short-range, low capacity, mid-range low capacity, mid-range high capacity, long-range mid capacity, and long-range high capacity planes. Aboard a United Airlines 747-400, however, (the same used in the previous Delta example), the seat pitch is thirty-four inches. Aboard the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the new plane that Boeing just introduced onto the market, standard seat width in a United Airlines economy class is thirty-two inches. This not a dramatic increase over the seat widths of our sample of planes above, (less than the thirty-four inch 747-400), but the extra inch favors the newer planes that are permeating the market. Seat pitch and width do<\/i> vary from airline to airline however, depending on the configuration. It\u2019s hard to gauge whether the industry is moving toward more or less seat pitch and width without being able to compare current specifications to those of the past. One indication that spaciousness is trending in the right direction is that airlines have opted for manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus to deliver planes with roomier configurations. At the beginning of 2014<\/a>, all Airbus A350 customers \u201cexcept one low-cost carrier\u201d had opted for eighteen-inch seat width in economy cabins. Airlines could have chosen the standard 17.2 inch seat widths, but instead went with a more comfortable arrangement.<\/p>\nSeat Width<\/b><\/h4>\n
Seat Pitch<\/b><\/h4>\n
New Windows, Lighting, and Quieter Engines<\/b><\/h4>\n