AIBU to think airline seats no longer fit average-sized adults?

I have the same problem, op. I'm tall with broad shoulders, and a healthy weight. The seats NEVER have enough shoulder or leg room. It's bloody annoying.

@Fliesinmyeyesseats ate getting smaller. Since the 1980s seats are up to two inches narrower and up to six inches closer (pitch), particularly (and surprisingly) the top four USA airlines. The rest of the world it varies. But the 777 carriers, originally designed to carry nine people across, 70% of the newer ones now carry ten across. BA has actually retrofitted some of its 777 carriers to this configuration with seats only 17inches across. I know my Virgin Premium Economy seat in the newer A330-900neo is 18.5inches wide, but in the older A330-300 were 21 inches wide.
Yes people are getting larger, but many airlines are now featuring narrower seats. Today, Japan Airlines is one of the most generous with 34 inch pitch and 18.9 width in economy, tightest is low cost airlines like Cebo Pacific with 28 inch pitch and 16.5 inch width. Jet2 (as it’s been mentioned here) is not particularly tight; it’s on par with EasyJet and Ryanair with width of 17-18inches and pitch of 28-30.

Yet you told me that because I’m shorter than you I must have narrow shoulders , when in fact I don’t . I think there’s a few things you need to think about. Someone recovering from an ED surely should be more understanding considering I am also recovering from one and tried to help to be faced with your body shaming and insults .

How tall are you ? Manor paying for extra leg room

I’m 5ft 7 and leg stretch comfortably under seat in front

OP I think you might be kidding yourself as to how slim you and your friend are.

I'm quite tall with a BMI in the middle of normal. I fit into airline seats, even when someone really very large is on both sides of me. It's less comfortable, I'll grant you, but surrounded by normal sized people, even slightly overweight people I'd be fine.

It's also difficult because they often won't let you put your small cabin bag in the overhead locker so the space where your feet and legs would go is filled by your bag.

If you have really long legs that is impossible.

I just slide my feet and legs under the seat in front

My main gripe with plane seats is lack of leg space. My knees always ache so badly after a flight. It seems that anyone average height or above gets a bad experience.

Nobody has any right to buy anything that a business can't sell profitably.

With flights there are always options, people y
just can't afford them

That's leg room though, not seat width. A plane is as wide as it is. You can't make seats wider without taking out one seat of the row of 6 to make it a 2-3 configuration. No airlines are deliberately making the seats narrower in a 3-3 formation just to make passengers uncomfortable. If people want wider seats, i.e. a 2-3 configuration, then they'll have to pay 20% higher prices for everything, i.e. the flight itself, the add-on baggage costs, the priority boarding charge, the onboard food/drink/gifts etc to make up for the loss of revenue.

@Frequency

Believe me, if I had the option to pay more and fly with a better airline, I would, but either they don't fly from our local airports or such holidays don't exist.

...and that's exactly what some of the Locos and TBF other airlines rely on...it's classic customer inertia.

If you won't connect via another airport or contemplate changing to another airport/operator or can't afford to then you're stuck.

I agree, but I dont have any problems with this. Its enabled mass travel at affordabl eprices.

The problem is that people then complain about what they get when they have bought on lowest price.

It's like people staying in aTravelodge complaining there's no room service to call up to deliver a steak sandwich and no G&T in the non existent minibar.

Plane seats are the same width they have always been. Take for example the Boeing 737 which has been around in various forms for well over 50 years. The width of the aircraft cabin has actually increased slightly but the seats have always been 3-3 so the seat width has not changed. The only sizes that have changed are the passengers! Now legroom, that's a different matter!

@ThatCyanCat

I sometimes wonder if they would do better to start at the higher price and let you take stuff off rather than do it the other way around so you feel like you're saving money rather than paying more, but I guess that wouldn't get people onto the website in the first place.
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Your final comment nails it.

The sales/marketing people always reckon you've got to be able to get the lowest ticket price on the front of the website as a starter...then tack on the optional ancillaries.

If your opening price is all in but too high most customers won't hang around long enough to find out that it can be reduced by removing options.

Tickets are often marketed at the lowest possible cost based on flight only, at the cheapest possible time, and then as you go through they add costs for things like baggage or reserved seating or getting a life jacket.

I sometimes wonder if they would do better to start at the higher price and let you take stuff off rather than do it the other way around so you feel like you're saving money rather than paying more, but I guess that wouldn't get people onto the website in the first place.

After losing 7s an now a size 12 I can def say seats fit me with room to spare

and this comes from someone who obv was fat

I always fitted into them but was snug on thighs. Didn’t need seat belt extended but was at end of seatbelt

The problem is that people will buy plane tickets based mostly on price and then the airlines look for ways to cut costs in order to be able to offer the lowest price possible.

I fly with Jet2 most years and usually share a row with my two 6 foot bodybuilding sons and never have an issue (I'm 5 foot 6 and a size 12). I mean you're not exactly getting room to stretch out and move around but I can sit normally without feeling like my space is being encroached upon.

Yeah yeah. Just use that thing called Google and you’ll discover that the average person is now significantly taller and broader in the shoulders than in the 50s (when the industry standard for airline seat size was fixed). Since deregulation in the ‘70s and ‘80s, seat width and depth have both progressively narrowed by up to 2 inches and 7 inches respectively, for purely economic reasons, hence the rise of operations like Ryanair and EasyJet. Obesity is certainly a problem but it’s not a scapegoat for the world’s woes, not even this one

Oh crikey... That must have been scary. In that case maybe she shouldn't have said anything but it just seems awful that she's literally not able to sit back while the two people either side are oblivious!

I have been surprised at new configurations that have my knees pressing into the seat in front. I am only 5ft 8!!