Both. I want to go back to reasonable seat sizes even if costs go up because as it stands I'm choosing to fly less and less with the current seat pitch. In fact I did pay $100 out of pocket to upgrade my seat to economy plus and was lucky to snag a business row seat, or so I thought. It was in fact a miserably crowded experience.
The ticket prices back in the days of "reasonable seat sizes" were much more than your economy plus ticket cost. One of the big reasons flying is so affordable now is precisely because they can cram so many people in.
What a difference an inch makes! Southwest happily competes with United with very similar pricing yet they have 32-33" seat pitches with some jets using 31" vs United running 32-31" pitches with some seats now down to 30". Weirdly it looks like Jet Blue has even larger pitches, peaking at 34".
Since Jet Blue and Southwest are considered discount carriers vs United clearly pitch isn't exclusively about price. It's also about profit, particularly when Southwest also has wider seats than United.
Seriously I'm glad we had this discussion because despite living in Houston I think I'll by flying Southwest in preference to United from now on.
I'm not talking about Southwest vs. some other American carrier in 2019, I'm talking about American carriers in general in 2019 vs. American carriers in 1985. They had more room back then, but ticket prices were much more than they are now, after adjusting for inflation.
Both. I want to go back to reasonable seat sizes even if costs go up because as it stands I'm choosing to fly less and less with the current seat pitch. In fact I did pay $100 out of pocket to upgrade my seat to economy plus and was lucky to snag a business row seat, or so I thought. It was in fact a miserably crowded experience.