Allegiant announced Tuesday it will start flying out of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport with two flights to Florida starting in mid-February.
The low-cost airline said it will offer flights to Orlando/Sanford International Airport starting Feb. 12 and Punta Gorda Airport starting Feb. 14. Flights to each destination will operate twice weekly.
By Joshua Freed
AP Airlines Writer
It’s not your imagination. There really is a tighter squeeze on many planes these days.
The big U.S. airlines are taking out old, bulky seats in favor of so-called slimline models that take up less space from front to back, allowing for five or six more seats on each plane.
The changes give the airlines two of their favorite things: More paying passengers, and a smaller fuel bill because the seats are slightly lighter. It’s part of a trend among the airlines to view seats as money-makers, not just pieces of furniture. Add a few inches of legroom and airlines can charge more for tickets. Take away a few inches and they can fit more seats on the plane.
Some passengers seem to mind the tighter squeeze more than others. The new seats generally have thinner padding. And new layouts on some planes have made the aisles slightly narrower.
And this is all going on in coach at a time when airlines are spending heavily to add better premium seats in the front of the plane.
Whether the new seats are really closer together depends on how you measure. By the usual measure, called “pitch,” the new ones are generally an inch closer together from front to back as measured at the armrest.
Airlines say you won’t notice. And the new seats are designed to minimize this problem. The seats going onto Southwest’s 737s have thinner seatback magazine pockets. Passengers on Alaska Airlines will find slightly smaller tray tables. United’s new seats put the magazine pocket above the tray table, getting it away from passengers’ knees. And seat-makers saved some space with lighter-weight frames and padding.
This allows airlines to claim that passengers have as much above-the-knee “personal space” as they did before, even if the seats are slightly closer together below the knee.
New seats going into United Airlines’ Airbus A320s are an inch closer together from front to back. The new seats Southwest has put on nearly its entire fleet are 31 inches apart, about an inch less than before. In both cases, the airlines were able to add an extra row of six seats to each plane. Southwest went from 137 seats to 143. Both airlines say the new seats are just as comfortable.
United’s says the new seats make each A320 1,200 pounds lighter. Southwest says the weight savings is cutting about $10 million per year in fuel spending. In addition, the extra seats allow Southwest to expand flying capacity 4 percent without adding any planes, says spokesman Brad Hawkins, while also collecting more revenue from the additional passengers.
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