AA's main cabin "extra" room seats.

So this year I booked us on AA for our Florida trip because they had better times/routing. Because we prefer a little extra leg room, I upgraded our seats to their "main cabin extra" seats. WHAT A JOKE and a bad joke at that. I was aware USAirways sardined their passenger in bit to pay extra for seats that aren't any better than standard seats on another airline is ridiculouse. I'm 5'9 and felt crammed in for our 2 hour flight. I feel the pain of anyone taller.

We had taken USAirways out of consideration for flights long ago. I guess we'll have to take the combined USAirwyas/AA merged company off as well. I'm not sure why I expected it to be any different.

Honestly I find choosing the best carrier for us to be an ever changing carrousel of decisions. Currently SWA's has moved to the top followed by UAL and Delta, which has crept back up the ladder after being down at the bottom for a few years (changes in FF program more than service).

I don't mind paying for extra leg room. I just want extra leg room, not what use to be standard leg room. As the flight was packed (literally), I doubt losing my couple of seats of business 3 or 4 times a year will matter much to AA.

FWIW to anyone flying the combined USAirways/American Airlines carrier, coming home we were able to swith our MCE (main cabin extra) seats to exit row seating for the same price. Those seats are the only ones we found that actually have extra leg room compared to what we've found nomral leg room to be on other carriers. It's the only way I'll consider flying AA again unless there's absolutely no other reasonable choice.

Combine the lack of leg room with the fact they're putting power outlets under all their seats and you have another issue. That being there's less space under the seat for a carry on personal item. Because the fight for precious overhead bin space as become so acute, we typically check our luggage and only carry on small backpacks that, under ordinary circumstances, fit easily under the seat along with my wife's purse. With the power outlet under the seats on AA, there wasn't enough room for the small Kata camera bag and my wife's purse. My wife has the backpack style camera bag and I have a narrow Kata sling bag. While I could get both under the seats, the area was so cramped that my wife's purse wouldn't fit. So essentially any carry on and personal item will require at least one item to go in the overhead bin. It forced us to use up bin space we ordinarily wouldn't have had to use and makes a bad situation even worse.

I feel for the business traveler in todays airfare market. With all the changes made so frequently by airlines trying to squeeze out profits for wallstreet, you just can't count on any airline to be a favorite for more than a couple of years. It makes it that much more difficult to be a loyal customer to any company.

I have no loyalties.
Within the universe of doable routes, I go with the cheapest (excluding Spirit).

Some of us have become used to our status as sardines in steerage-class seats.
I might find extra leg room a little frightening.
...

Virgin America and Jet Blue. I am usually a bargain hunter, but I'd probably pay a bit extra just to fly Virgin.

staceyeileen said:

Virgin America and Jet Blue. I am usually a bargain hunter, but I'd probably pay a bit extra just to fly Virgin.

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At my age I'm afraid that comfort runs equal or more important to price. We're balancing our travel expenses out by driving more and flying less. Flying, with all it's rule, regulations and airlines desire to cram ever more passengers into a fixed space makes flying much less desirable than 10 years ago.

I will say that our outbound flights were completely full but our return flights were perhaps only 75% of capacity. Currently Wallstreet is driving airlines to cut costs and increase per plane capacity to improve profits for stock holders. My hope is that they eventually make flying so undesirable that they are forced to return to some greater level of comfort for passengers.

We switched all of our business and personal travel to Southwest from AA several years ago. Except for international travel, I'm convinced Southwest is the best thing going right now. In our market, they almost always have the lowest fares and love their cancellation policy and no fee for bags.

dougp26364 said:

At my age I'm afraid that comfort runs equal or more important to price. We're balancing our travel expenses out by driving more and flying less. Flying, with all it's rule, regulations and airlines desire to cram ever more passengers into a fixed space makes flying much less desirable than 10 years ago.

I will say that our outbound flights were completely full but our return flights were perhaps only 75% of capacity. Currently Wallstreet is driving airlines to cut costs and increase per plane capacity to improve profits for stock holders. My hope is that they eventually make flying so undesirable that they are forced to return to some greater level of comfort for passengers.

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The problem is not Wall Street -- general consumers are not willing to pay for comfort over price. AA used to have "More Room Throughout Coach" where every seat had extra leg room in the early 2000's ... they abandoned it because their cabins were no more full than other carriers on a percentage basis -- and they had less seats!

You may have had a bad plane. Seat pitch varies from aircraft to aircraft depending on the layout, and can vary quite a bit. 31" is about the norm, and I would say anything over than that is good.

Simply put, premium economy is the norm now (eg. UA Economy Plus, Delta Comfort Plus, etc.). And the product is not significantly different from airline to airline. I am Plat on AA and Premier Gold on UA -- I can say the product does not differ much between the two except for aircraft variations IMHO.

-ryan

sjsharkie said:

You may have had a bad plane. Seat pitch varies from aircraft to aircraft depending on the layout, and can vary quite a bit. 31" is about the norm, and I would say anything over than that is good.

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31" Ouch

We just flew Hawaiian Air back from Hawaii. Although their standard coach seating is 31-32", I paid for the new "Extra Comfort" seats which were 36" and it made a big difference.

In May we'll be flying JetBlue from LAS to JFK and eventually on to Aruba and then back to LAS. Their standard seats are 34" and their "Even more Comfort" seats are spaced 38-39".

NOTE: I got all the seat spacings/pitch off SeatGuru.com