Leg Room Squeeze: American Airlines Cuts More Inches Between Rows

Despite an already tight squeeze for leg room, American Airlines is planning to cut inches between rows in economy class on its new planes.

The airline is adding more seats to its Boeing 737 Max jetliners, but to do that, it has to cut the front-to-back space between some of the seats.

According to CNN Money, the distance between seats in three rows of the plane will go from 31 inches to 29 inches while for most other rows it will shrink by an inch.

Passengers have some time, though, before the change takes place since the new jets won’t start rolling out until later in the year, the New York Daily News reported.

Up to this point, American Airlines was one of the more roomy flights on which to travel, along with Jet Blue and Virgin Airlines: Jet Blue has 34 inches in between its economy class seats; Virgin has 32 inches.

Soon, American will have similar leg room space to United Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and Frontier Airlines, which all have 30 or fewer inches of leg room for passengers.

American Airlines says even though the leg room is about to change, the new seats have been designed to “maximize personal living space while allowing more comfort,” a spokesman told Skift.

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