USA Today’s Today in the Sky Blog has written about American Airlines’ new 737-800.  Except, it isn’t new to the fleet.  AA has had quite a few 737-800 aircraft in the fleet for 10 years now.  What’s new is that they’ve started getting new deliveries and they’ve apparently found a way to reconfigure the aircraft for a total of 160 passengers (incuding Business Class) which is 12 more than their current configuration on the “old” aircraft.

So, how did they do that?  By using new seats and reconfiguring their gallies essentially.  What AA *claims* is that you, the passenger, will have just about as much room (31″ pitch so, no, not really) as what you might experience on a MD-80 aircraft (about 32″ and only a 1 in 5 chance of a middle seat versus a 2 in 6 chance).  Indeed, they suggest that you might be more comfortable with the new seating.

Maybe.  If you are young, slender and somewhat short in stature, I suspect they might be right.  If you are tall, older and heavier, I suspect you’re in for greater discomfort in the real world.   The seats are “slimmer” which means they’re a bit thinner both in their frame construction as well as their padding.  This means that for relatively svelt people, a change isn’t felt but for a man-sized, well, man, you’re probably gonna feel a harder, less comfortable seat.    In addition, the seats are a “cradle” type that is supposed to save the passengers knees behind you.   Maybe, just maybe that will happen.   I continue to call for reclining those 31″ pitch seats to be disabled.  They cause more hostility and problems than they offer in comfort. 

What really incenses me is the photo shown HERE on USA Today’s site.  Why?  Because it shows a svelt flight attendent sitting in an exit row seat.  Yeah, loads of room there.  What I would like to see is a 230lbs business man sitting in a conventional middle seat somewhere else on that aircraft.  Please take two photos: One distance shot and one of his face.  I want to know just how painful that seat is.

Here is an interesting fact:  When American Airlines had their More Room in Coach program going on, their 737-800 aircraft seated just 134 total people.  Now they’ve boosted that to 160 total seats.  I guarantee you that space was not carved out of Business Class so where did they achieve enough room to fit 26 more seats? 

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