As I have been reading aviation magazines and blogs about airline seats, I came to a realization — if coach passengers are in search of guaranteed, humane seats, they need to fly on Southwest. The airline that may be denigrated by some business fliers for cattle-car boarding processes and all-coach seating, is turning out to be guaranteeing the best seating in coach of any major airline in the US.
As the major legacy network carriers in the US compete in their race to the smallest possible distance between airline seats, Southwest has kept its effective seat pitch steady. As their major competition takes away personal space from passengers, Southwest is either keeping the spacing of its seats steady or increasing it through installation of new seats.
An article published by CAPA Centre for Aviation, one of the big names in airline trade magazines, focused on what they call “densification.” The article starts off like this:
American, Delta and United remain bullish about their strategies to grow capacity through seat densification, often characterising the additional seats as efficient generators of capacity at nominal costs.
It also appears that the densification efforts are a competitive response to one another as the three large network airlines seek to offer the same size aircraft in order to reap the benefits that more densely configured jets deliver.
The airline that has the least compassion for its passengers is Delta. That airline has increased its seat densification more than any other. Delta refers to packing more and more passengers into its planes as “efficiency.”
Delta in late 2014 also heralded the efficiency gains by operating more densely configured aircraft, noting its then planned 3 percent 2015 capacity growth was with flat year-on-year departures and 11 fewer aircraft. Much of that was driven by Delta’s long standing initiative to reduce its fleet of 50-seat jets. It ended 2015 with 189 50-seat regional jets, down from 474 in 2009. The latest seat additions to the narrowbodies will be completed in 2016-2017, which should drive even more capacity on fewer departures.
As American, Delta and United continue their race to less and less personal space on aircraft, the seating on Southwest is looking relatively luxurious and their seat pitch is consistent. Legacy carriers have coach seat pitch set between 28 and 31 inches, and passengers have no idea of what they are buying.
So, the bottom line, after all is said and done, is that Southwest, once known for its cattle car boarding and all-coach seating, is now becoming the most luxurious choice for coach passengers looking for consistent seating pitch. In the low cost major carrier, passengers can consistently expect seat pitch of 31-33 inches. On all other major airlines, the seat pitch is a crap shoot, with some offering as little room in coach as Spirit Airlines and Allegiant.
Southwest operates its Boeing 737-700 (the backbone of its fleet) in a single class 143-seat configuration with 31-inch pitch and its 737-800s in a 175 seat configuration with 32- to 33-inch pitch.
As regards the boarding process, Southwest’s line-up of passengers in boarding zones seems absolutely civilized and seamless when compared with the crowding and jostling that takes place when American, Delta and United’s boarding is proceeding zone by zone.
Just as the major legacy network airlines are decrying the commoditization of the airline product, this new race to seat discomfort is working towards a true commoditization of airline travel. There is, in fact, virtually no difference between flying on Delta, American or United. If the labels were stripped off those aircraft and uniforms replaced with generic suits on the flight attendants, no one could tell the difference.
I can not think of any other industry in the US where the goal of the major players is worse customer service, less space and a more unpleasant experience. In this kind of warped marketing world, the major US carriers are sowing the seeds of their demise.
Already, Southwest — with its focus on customer service, its consistency of product and its shunning of ancillary fees together with change and cancellation fees — is taking traffic from the three legacy carriers every year. That trend will be accelerating as Southwest begins its international service. Plus, ultra-low-cost carriers will also keep growing and stealing the leisure travelers from American, Delta and United. Soon, the legacy carriers will have an even greater dependency on their business traffic.
That business traffic is also under attack by the airlines themselves as they make working with corporate travel managers and travel agencies more and more difficult. Where once the airline had a goose that could lay golden eggs of record profits, as competition faded and jet fuel prices dropped, they are finding ways to be their own worst enemies.
When the airline industry fights with its customer base and when major carriers battle with their most productive and lucrative distribution channels, there is cause for concern. This kind of rapacious corporate greed, the strangling of the airline distribution system and the abandonment of customer service will only serve to embolden new competitors and kill the established legacy, network carriers.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.