[geodel]

Well old planes I travelled in India were more spacious. And new planes from US to India were so congested to the point of being claustrophobic. There is no way one can put meal tray on to that tiny front seat pullout.

Needless to say I am just a cattle class passenger. Upper classes would have better experience. Sure, old planes will last forever and everything in next decades will be replaced by same tight seating planes.

[kube-system]

Seat configuration is up to the airline to decide to some degree. Some newer 737s have the ability for airlines to pack them dense if they decide to. A lot of airlines use 737s for short haul flights that do not have meal service, so not being able to fit a meal is not a concern for these customers. What they care about more is being able to split the costs between more passengers and offer cheaper tickets.

[PaulHoule]

Packing in more people definitely improves the economics of the plane and gets the ticket price down and makes it available to more people. In the US we stopped giving out free meals on flights about 10 years ago, at best you can buy a $20 yucky cardboard lunch box, so the problem of the front pullout never comes up.

I think the most luxurious experience in US domestic travel I had was circa 2013 on a 767 widebody from NYC to LA but there were times circa 1990 when it was common to get on a 737 from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh to Albuquerque that was 1/3 full which feels spacious but that couldn't have been economic.

The industry here is competitive on price but not competitive on quality. New entrants in the industry have focused on price, but I can certainly imagine a start-up airline that builds a fleet of entirely A220 or E2-Jets around a hub in, say, Texas, could serve almost all of North America and advertise a futurist plane you'll like much better.