Qatar Airways CEO Thinks 10-Across Seating Is Comfortable

Qatar Airways CEO, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker, is one of the best known CEOs in the airline world and he likes to ruffle feathers. He also likes the sound of his own voice. The upside to this is that Akbar Al Baker is one of the more entertaining airline CEOs to listen to while the downside is that can come up with a good deal of nonsense too.

Until recently Qatar Airways was one of the few remaining airlines to offer 9-across seating in their Boeing 777-300 aircraft. Airlines like Emirates, Etihad, American Airlines and Air France/KLM have long squeezed 10 seats across the width of their 777-300 Economy Class cabins subjecting passengers to unnecessarily narrow seats into the bargain (the seats on American’s 777-300s are just 17” wide).

In August 2015 Qatar Airways quietly, and without warning, released into service a 777-300 with 10-across seating in Economy Class. They then followed this up in December with an announcement confirming that all future 777-300 deliveries would come with 10-across seating and that the existing fleet of 777-300 would slowly be refitted with an extra seat in each row.

The width of the Economy Class seats in Qatar Airways’ 777-300s was reduced from 18.9” to 17.5” or even 17” wide.

A couple of days ago, at a press junket in LA to celebrate Qatar Airways’ new flight to the city, Akbar Al Baker was in full flow and @AirlineReporter was on hand to keep us all updated of the CEO’s comments:

On Delta’s December announcement that they had agreed to purchase a 10-year-old Boeing 777-200 for $7.7m (a very low price for a 777), Al Baker commented that Qatar does not “fly old, crap second hand airplanes” – yes, apparently those were his exact words.

He attacked American Airlines (a OneWorld partner) for its part in the continuing actions by the big 3 US airlines against the Middle East carriers. Al Baker threatened to quit OneWorld and pointed out that Qatar Airways was big enough to create its own mini-alliance – that’s the airline equivalent of taking your ball home when the other kids annoy you.

Al Baker didn’t spare the European carriers either and accused British Airways (whose parent company is 10% owned by Qatar Airways), Lufthansa and Air France of hypocrisy over the subsidies argument – hard to argue with the man on that point.

One of the bigger threats Al Baker made was surprisingly subtle (for him) as he openly “wondered” how many European jobs would be lost should Qatar Airways cancel their remaining Airbus orders. The answer to that question is “probably quite a few” but then what would Qatar Airways do for aircraft? Go to Boeing? They’re American and it’s the US airlines giving him the biggest headaches.

And when Airline Reporter asked him about 10-across seating he replied that “[Qatar Airways] would never compromise passenger comfort” and that because they’re not aviation journalists “passengers won’t notice a difference”.

A bold statement from a man who, I’m pretty sure, has never flown long-haul in an Economy Cabin with 10-across seating.

Akbar Al Baker went on to say “I could have taken the 777s with 10-abreast 10 years ago; I didn’t until I was sure it wouldn’t compromise comfort”

That’s a very noble statement but it was slightly undermined by the next thing he said (with reference to 10-across seating in Economy Class):

We are in the business of making money

Sorry your Excellency, but you can’t have it both ways. You’re either in the business of making money or in the business of ensuring passenger comfort – the two do not go hand in hand….especially not when you’re reducing seat width by at least 1.5 inches in the Economy Class cabin.

Telling the traveling public that Qatar Airways’ 10-across seating is comfortable enough for them is, metaphorically speaking, a bit like Marie Antoinette telling the starving French peasants to “eat cake” and to stop complaining when told of their lack of food.

I’d have more respect for Akbar Al Baker if he just came out and said that the other Middle Eastern airlines have had 10-across seating for years and, to compete, Qatar had to eventually follow suit. That would be the honest thing to say.

Playing fast and loose with the truth about the comfort of 10-across seating isn’t going to win him or his airline any friends – it won’t take a regular flyer more than a single flight to notice the change so I’m not sure who he thinks he’s kidding.

The problem, however, is that there really aren’t that many airlines that offer anything other than 10-across seating on their long-haul 777-300 aircraft so what’s a passenger to do?

“Not much” is the honest answer to that question but the traveling public can at least keep itself informed. I wrote a couple of blog posts last month detailing the different seat dimensions on offer for travel across the Atlantic and across the Pacific and the information in those blogs is quite telling.

There are airlines that you really should try to avoid if seat width and/or seat pitch are important to you and there are certain aircraft you should be avoiding too (if at all possible). Akbar Al Baker can protest and bluster all he likes but his airline’s 777-300s just joined the “avoid if you can” list for anyone traveling in Economy Class.