Expert Article

Air travel going downhill in U.S.

Domestic airlines cutting back on more services

Long TSA lines, awful customer service, and tight seats are just a few things that travelers have to deal with when travelling across America today. It is no surprise that airlines find themselves in the media’s poor view as the continuously provide customer service stories worthy of national attention because of their absurdness.

What’s going on?

Airlines in the United States have been on a steady path of decline in terms of passenger satisfaction and the once known superb service they provided. Following the deregulation in 90s, passengers have seen a huge shift in airlines attempting to take advantage and control of the amenities that were once free. Anything from seats becoming smaller to being charged $30 to print boarding passes, airlines have been finding new ways to get more cash out of travelers.

Seats, are we getting fatter?

You might ask yourself when sitting in United’s slim line seats if maybe perhaps you have gained a few extra pounds over the months or somehow grown an extra few inches. The simple answer however is that new aircraft are being turned into flying sardine cans. Domestic airlines have been reducing space between rows and on seats sizes in order to squeeze in more passengers on already congested airplanes. Spirit airlines, a low cost carrier, is the worst airline in terms of seat pitch at a mere 28 inches. This is well below the already scrunched 32 inches for an average economy seat on U.S. domestic airlines.  U.S. regulators state the average seat width has fallen from an industry of average of 18 inches to about 16 ½ inches. This may seem like a small difference but in reality for most travelers this heavily effect their comfort during flight. It is now inevitable to be rubbing elbows with your fellow neighbor or simply having your knees pushing up on the seat in front of you. At what cost may you imagine the airlines are doing this at? To them it’s a huge W, they can add more rows of seats which they can now intentionally place in the front of the aircraft and market them as premium economy. In reality those new extra rows are the seats that would have been concerned economy several years ago but now have been rebranded as premium seats because of their “extra leg room”.