Big people and airplanes: For obvious reasons, it’s a contentious relationship. In 2010, Hollywood director Kevin Smith was removed from a Southwest Airlines (LUV) flight for being too plump for his seat. “You [expletive] with the wrong sedentary processed foods eater!” Smith tweeted at the airline afterward. Earlier this month, Samoa Air announced it will charge passengers according to their size.
But the big and tall flyers among us may find some welcome news from this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo, held last week in Hamburg. There, Airbus (EAD) interiors marketing manager Stefanie Von Linstow revealed the company’s plans to offer “extra-wide” seats on its biggest-selling model, the A320. Some rows in the airplane’s economy class—where the seats measure 18 inches across—would be modified. In the plan, the rows would continue to have three seats, but the aisle seat would be expanded to 20 inches wide, while the middle and window seats would be reduced to 17 inches. Airlines would gain a brand new product in each row, to sell at a premium or to reward their best customers.
Two inches may sound, well, meaningless. After all, the extra space wouldn’t fit an iPhone 5, sans protective case, resting lengthwise. But, considering the tight, jigsaw geometry of aircraft furniture—where the slightest bit of elbow room spells comfort—this little space is a big deal. According to Gretchen Gscheidle, the director of insight and innovation at upscale furniture maker Herman Miller (MLHR) (note: she knows a lot about chairs), the seat expansion will have a real impact on travelers, notably women.
In the late 1990s, Herman Miller was an investor in the Civilian American and European Surface Anthropometry Resource Project (Caesar). “It was one of the most comprehensive studies of human anthropometric measurements ever done, with 3D scans and different postures,” says Gscheidle. The research, funded by a consortium of companies, from apparel makers to auto manufacturers, measured more than 4,000 subjects from the U.S. and Europe—including the Netherlands, where people are the tallest, and Italy, where people are the smallest.
According to Caesar’s findings, the hip breadth of men in the 95th percentile of the population (i.e., the bigger side) measures 17.6 inches across. Men in the 5th percentile have a hip breadth of 13.1 inches. So 95 percent of men can fit into a regular 18-inch Airbus seat with no problem—“If you’re right exactly at 18 inches, it means you can move around a little,” says Gscheidle—and the bigger seat means even more room to get cozy and stretch one’s limbs. For the females, though, it’s a different story.
The hip breadth of women in the 90th percentile of the population measures 19.2 inches, and those in the 95th percentile have hips measuring 22.4 inches. “It goes back to the core skeletal system,” Gscheidle explains. “The female pelvis is much larger than the male pelvis. With the change from 18 inches to 20 inches, about 10 percent of the female population will be additionally accommodated.” That’s right: One in 10 women can expect to breathe a sigh of relief if they score one of these seats.
But it raises the question: Male or female, who wants to sit in a seat that’s 17 inches across? Don’t forget that under Airbus’s plan, the middle and window seats would courteously give up an inch. Is it smart for airlines to raise their chances of sacrificing the comfort of two passengers in order to please one? Well, that’s up to the airlines. But the idea, of course, is to make flyers pay more for the bigger seat, another way to generate more revenue per flight.
“At the end of the day, expanding to 20 inches is good for posture and good for comfort,” says Gscheidle. But she is quick to temper expectations: “The seat size relative to shoulder breadth … well, that’s a different ballgame.”
