There are many reasons to despise flying, from delays, to fees, to overzealous TSA staff.
But shrinking seats and the pain, claustrophobia, and rage they can trigger are arguably the biggest justification for airline loathing. The modern seat, with its power to pack more customers onto any given plane, is at the very heart of the industrys 21st century economics. Slimmer seats and less legroom between rowsknown as pitchhas enabled cabin densification across domestic and international fleets. More seats, quite simply, means more money and lower operating costs.
There are limits, however, even beyond physical constraints. Regulators mandate a certain ratio of attendants to seats, and carriers want to keep labor costs down. Still, the trend has clearly been moving toward scrunching you. While 34 to 35 inches of pitch was once common for economy class, the new normal is 30 to 31 inches, with several major carriers deploying 28 inches on short and medium flights. Soon, however, that squeeze-play may come to an end.
The seat factory in Winston-Salem is at the center of testing the physical limits of human tolerance.
