We all know and have realised first hand how airline seats are getting smaller and smaller. The personal space available to us is nowhere near what it used to be a couple of decades ago. However what is not that well known to the most is how the space is measured in aviation. So today I’ll be explaining what Seat Pitch is in passenger aircraft cabins.
What is Seat Pitch on a Plane?
Leg room is the main aspect of interest when travelling economy on any airline. We all know that we’ll be in for very little of it when we’re travelling low cost airlines or even worse ultra low cost airlines.
However airplane interiors and seat manufacturers as the airlines don’t measure space in leg room. What they do use as a standard measurement across the entire industry is Seat Pitch.
Seat Pitch is the distance from any point of a given seat to the one that is in front of it or behind it. You’ll almost always find seat pitch measurements stated in imperial units, or inches.
So although the leg space isn’t taken as a standalone measurement in aircraft cabins, the seat pitch clearly gives an idea of what it might be like. Just you need to get accustomed to what the average measurements look like.
Some Seat Pitch Examples?
Just to get a better feel for what average seat pitches look like across the aviation world here’s some examples. Let’s take one of the airline’s that offers the smallest seat pitch and a more generous one: Spirit on the A319 and ANA on the A380.
Spirit’s A319 will offer passengers a tiny 28 inch pitch while the ANA A380 in economy accommodates passengers with a 32 inch pitch. As you can figure out a 4 inch difference is absolutely huge.
