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US Airways is reportedly considering removing first class seats and shrinking pitch in economy class. Essentially, the airline is trying to standardize its fleet, following the merger of the old US Airways with America West. Planes are moving to the America West configuration. Economy seats, which occasionally yielded 33 inches of pitch, depending on the row, are being brought back to 31-32 inches of legroom.

Bad news for US Airways flyers, who get the double-whammy of decreased upgrade chances and less comfort in the back of the plane. It’s not exactly a customer-friendly move, but it’s along the lines of the airline’s self-proclaimed transportation into a discount carrier.

Keith Alexander’s column, laying out these changes, would drive me nuts if I were a loyal US Airways flyer. As it is, the piece just drives me nuts thanks to the presentation of the numbers in this passage.

US Airways’ changes will put it in line with United Airlines, which also has 12 first-class seats on its Airbus A320. Northwest’s A320 first-class cabin has 16 seats. Continental Airlines has 24 first-class seats on its Boeing 757-200, which it flies transcontinental. Delta Air Lines has 24 first-class seats on its Boeing 757, which operates on transcontinental routes.

Okay, I’m a nitpicker, and normally I like Alexander’s columns, but notice the sleight of hand here: Comparing the USAirways A320 with the United and Northwest A320s is fine. But the comparisons with Continental and Delta suddenly switch to a different (and much larger) plane, the 757, which makes it sound like Delta and Continental are the lap of luxury, with double the first class seating. The numbers aren’t wrong, per se — the seat counts are correct — but the paragraph switches gears to go from talking about a particular model of airplane, to talking about planes used on cross-country flights.

A fairer comparison would be Delta and Continental’s 737-800s, which have 14, 16, or 18 first class seats, depending on the configuration, and which also make the transcontinental trip.

Or, compare the 757s across all airlines — all of the mentioned carriers use them. I’ll stop now:

(image: Ross Mayfield)
tags: travel | air travel | first class