Travellers who may have been hoping for a chance to stretch their legs on upcoming flights may have to resort to pacing up and down the aisles, after an annual study revealed that leading airlines are skimping on the legroom they offer to passengers. (Featured image is by mclarenshen)
The research by Business Traveller magazine revealed that budget airlines easyJet and Ryanair are among the most miserly airlines when it comes to legroom, ranking 31st and 24th respectively.
While easyJet offers 29-inches of legroom for passengers, Ryanair offers a slightly more generous 30 inches.
However, the tables were turned when it came to seat width, with Ryanair found to have the narrowest seats at 16 inches, compared to easyJet’s 17.5 inches.
Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines took joint first place in the ranking, offering 32 inches of space. Ranking in third place, ANA airlines offered a range that stretched from 31 inches to a whopping 38 inches.
“If you’re flying economy, an inch or two can make a lot of difference after a few hours, so it is worth knowing that while you might get a little bit more legroom on Ryanair than on easyJet, your seat won’t recline on Ryanair,” said Jenny Southan, editor of the Business Traveller Airline Survey.
“The airlines are fitting more seats on to the aircraft, although they say that this isn’t affecting our legroom because the new type of economy seat cushion is thinner, increasing the amount of legroom by a small margin.
“Airlines are also charging for seats in exit rows or by bulkheads which can provide passengers with up to two extra feet of space.”
A number of international airlines are slimming down seats onboard their aircraft, in a bid to increase the amount of profit they can make from each flight.
Air France, Delta Air Lines and Lufthansa are among those carriers who are planning to replace steel-framed seats with new thinner, lighter models, increasing the number of seats that they can squeeze across the body of a Boeing 777 from 9 to 10.
