[Someone1234]

I've given up complaining about legroom, all I hear back is the same tired "just pay quadruple for business class!" But realistically it would cost significantly less for the airline to increase seat pitch to comfortable levels. For example:

Airbus's A321: 141 Economy Seats in sets of 3x, or 23 rows on each side of the aircraft. 31" pitch.

If we take out one row of 3x seats, that's 1.34 inches of additional pitch, if we take out two, that basically turns it into Delta's Economy Comfort (34" pitch). So how much is six seats going to cost?

I grabbed a random Atlanta -> New Orleans on an A321, total one way ticket cost for 6x tickets is $561. If we split that between all the remaining 21 rows/63 seats on one side of the aircraft, that is $9/seat.

For $9/seat we could all be sitting in economy comfort. Based on $93.5 one way, that is less than 9% surcharge.

Heck, sell one side of the aircraft at 34" pitch and $9 more, and the other at 31" pitch and $9 cheaper. Everyone wins.

I'd pay $9 more. I cannot afford to pay $405 which is the cost of business class by the way.

PS - These are back of napkin figures, not an academic study. Take with a pinch of salt.

[adrianN]

But then you couldn't sell economy comfort anymore. You have to take that into account in your calculation as well.

[Someone1234]

But the airline is also using less fuel. They're now transporting 6 less passengers and any luggage (even carry-on).

It also reduces stress on boarding, reduces some fees the airline pays, and while staffing cost per passenger increases, the airline's profit per passenger increases in kind.

Plus a lot of airlines don't even offer an Economy comfort class, and even fewer do on all of their aircraft.

The biggest likely impediment to this isn't the economics or business, it is that reseller sites only focus on price. They won't even tell you what the seat pitch/width is, they'll just tell you that seat A is $135 and seat B is $150.

[reubenswartz]

This is why I miss American Airlines "more room throughout coach" that they had ~20 years ago (am I really writing that?). You'd know that you'd get an almost comfortable amount of legroom. If it was ~$20ish more for a long flight, totally worth it, especially if you want to take your laptop out.

Of course, the real thing is that customers are voting with their wallets, and they generally prefer as cheap as possible.