42 POPULAR SCIENCE
companion raised his eyebrows but said noth-
ing. I tried to gauge how wide a berth my elbows
needed, and bumped the window-side guy. He
grunted and sighed. Somewhere between 480
and 500 millimetres.
The ironic thing about the compressed
state of air travel today is that planes are get-
ting larger. The jet I was on, an Airbus A321,
stretches nearly seven metres longer than
its predecessor, the A320. More space, more
passengers, more profit. These bigger planes
are increasingly the most common variants—
both on American Airlines and across all
carriers. The current Boeing 737s, the world’s
most flown craft, are all longer than the origi-
nal by up to 13 metres. And yet, on the inside,
we’re getting squeezed.
That’s because more space doesn’t equal
more space in Airline World. It equals more
seats—and typically less room per person. In
2017, for example, word leaked that American
was planning to add six economy spots to its
A320s, nine to its A321s, and 12 (that’s two rows)
to its Boeing 737-800s. JetBlue is reportedly
ramming 12 extras into its A320s, and Delta’s
will gain 10. And, come 2020, you’ll likely find
more seats on every United plane.
In Airline World, they call this densification,
which is a silly word. Passengers call itarrrgh!
Consumer Reportsrecently polled 55,000
of its members about air travel. There wereWhile I concertinaed my fairly average
5-foot-11, 78-kg frame into position, I realised I
needed something from my bag. I leaned for-
ward and hit my head on the seat in front of me.
OK, going straight in wasn’t an option; I’d have
to veer out of my allotted space.
To my left sat a girthy man, his aisle-side
arm resting upon his prodigious belly, the
other spilling over the armrest and nearly
into my lap. To my right, by the window, was a
short but still quite stocky fellow; he wore large
headphones, the bill of his ball cap tilted low.
I began moving, very slightly, this way and
that, in a manner not unlike someone parallel
parking a semi. I tilted my torso down into the
space near the shorter man’s legs and turned
to face the aisle-side girthy man, my nose sud-
denly millimetres from his arm. He recoiled. I
apologised, and gestured toward my backpack.
As I carefully dug around by my feet, a tod-
dler wailed, and I thought,That is the sound we
are all making on the inside. Our bodies want to
move, and aeroplanes try to keep us still. We
spill into each other’s spaces, banging elbows
and heads as we do what we’re built to do.
The toddler was still screaming when I felt
the heavy metal square I was looking for: a tape
measure. I sat up and began my assessments.
Between the seat in front of me and my knees:
less than 130 mm. Across my lap, from one
armrest to the other: 430 mm. My aisle-sideA WICKED WEB:Honeycomb Rows
The HD31 concept by French company Zodiac flips the middle seat.
Passengers don’t sit shoulder-to-shoulder, so they get cushions as
wide as 600 mm (that’s business-class-level space). The stagger
boosts legroom by 100 mm, but you have to face your neighbours.The flight was typical:
It was full, getting to
my seat took forever,
and, once I did, the
overhead-bin space
had run out. So I
shoved my backpack
under the seat in
front of me, where
my feet should have
gone. I was in the
middle—row 31, seat
E, American Airlines
flight 2070, Phoenix
to San Francisco.
My neighbours had
claimed the armrests,
so I had to wedge
myself in place,
elbows pinched
against my ribs or
folded toward my lap.
I’d be uncomfortable
for the duration of
the one-hour-and-
50-minute flight.
As I said: typical.
illustrations by Sinelab