Which Airline Seats For USA – Asia (Economy Class)?

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A couple of weeks ago I took a look at the amount of leg room and seat width Economy Class passengers can expect on the primary trans-Atlantic (TATL) airlines (Which Airline Seats For USA – Europe (Economy Class)?). Today I thought I’d do the same for the trans-Pacific (TPAC) routes.

A with my post on the TATL routes I made a number of assumptions which should be kept in mind by anyone using this information.

Airlines & Assumptions Used

• I selected what I consider to be the most frequently used airlines for TPAC travel.
• Where one airline uses a number of variants of the same aircraft and where the variants have slightly different seats, the smallest dimensions have been used (this doesn’t make that much of a difference but I thought I’d mention it before someone tried to correct me!)
• Where I can be sure that an airline doesn’t operate an aircraft that it has in its fleet for flights across the Pacific (e.g. American Airlines & its 767s) I have not shown that aircraft in the tables. Where I’m not sure then the aircraft info appears.
• All dimensions have been taken from SeatGuru – I know they’re not always the most reliable but I don’t see them being materially incorrect and they’re as good a source as any.
• All dimensions are in inches.
• I have rounded the seat dimensions to the nearest half-inch.
• All comparisons are for the basic Economy Class cabins. Cabins like United’s EconomyPlus or American’s MCE have not been included.
• American Airlines 777-200 aircraft are in the process of being refitted with new cabins. In the interest of keeping these charts relevant for as long as possible I’ve use the new seat dimensions here.

Seat Pitch Comparison

What is seat pitch?

Seat pitch refers to the space between a point on one seat and the same point on the seat in front of it.

Chart of Seat Pitch by Airline and Aircraft (Click to Enlarge)

Update 3 October 2016: Cathay Pacific has announced that it will be adding a row of seats to its long-haul Boeing Economy Class cabins so, once this has been done, the seat pitch in the chart below will be out of date.

Unlike what I found when researched the TATL airlines, none of the airlines flying TPAC appear to offer a 30″ seat pitch. On top of that, while there was only one TATL aircraft type that offered a seat pitch in excess of 32″ (33″ on a Turkish Airlines A340-300), on the TPAC routes there are quite a few such aircraft with one even offering a seat pitch of 34″.

The roundup:

• All TPAC Korean Air aircraft give Economy Class passengers 33″ of seat pitch. Compared to a lot of their competition that’s very good indeed.

• Asiana comes a very close second in the seat-pitch stakes with 4 of their 5 aircraft types offering 33″ of seat-pitch…but stay away from their 767-300 if you can. With just 31″ of seat-pitch they’re decidedly average.

• JAL’s offering is either excellent or poor depending on the aircraft. The airline has been introducing their new “Sky Wider” seats on some of their 777-300 and 787 aircraft (see here to see which routes) and, if you get one of those, you’re in Economy Class heaven. With a fantastic 34″ of seat-pitch and, as you’ll see later in this post, 19″ of seat width, they’re the roomiest Economy Class seats you’ll find.

JAL Sky Wider seats courtesy of JAL

• As usual, the airlines to avoid are the North American carriers where you’re almost guaranteed to have just 31″ of seat pitch unless you get a United Airlines Dreamliner or an Air Canada 777-200. Poor service and minimal room are the watchwords of these carriers.

• Singapore Airlines was the surprise package for me as I expected them to be amongst the more generous of the TPAC airlines. Whole by no means the worst, their 32″ of seat pitch is overshadowed by what Economy Class passengers can get on a number of other Asian carriers.

The two airlines that come out best in this comparison are Korean Air and Asiana who offer their passengers a very acceptable 33″ of seat-pitch in most of their aircraft. JAL flights with the Sky Wider seat are definitely the one’s to book if you can be sure you’ll get that seat but their other offerings with 31″ seat-pitch let the airline down.

But it’s not all about seat pitch. I’ll all very well having a bit of leg room but it’s not much good if you seat is so narrow that you can barely fit in it! So how do the airlines compare on seat width?

Seat Width Comparison

Chart of Seat Width by Airline and Aircraft (Click to Enlarge)

Update 3 October 2016: Cathay Pacific has announced that it will be adding an extra seat to each row in its long-haul Boeing Economy Class cabins so, once this has been done, the seat width in the chart below will be out of date.

Just as I found when looking at the offerings on TATL routes there are a lot of airlines offering the truly horrendous 17″-wide seats. It’s hard to miss the sea of red on this chart which indicates an aircraft with seats just 17″ wide.

The green boxes highlight any aircraft offering seats wider than 18″.

Before I analyse the results any further there are two things you should bear in mind:

1. ANA has configured its 787-8 aircraft in 4 different ways and only one of these has the appalling 17″-wide seats. The other 3 configurations offer an excellent 18.5″ of seat width.
2. Asiana has 5 different versions of their 777-200 aircraft and, while one version has the 17″-wide seats, the other 4 have a much more acceptable 18″ of seat width.

The chart above shows the worst-case scenario so, in the case of ANA and Asiana the worst seat widths have been shown.

• Just as was the case with TATL flights American Airlines are one of the worst offenders when it comes to denying their passengers any kind of lateral room. 17″ seat width across all their aircraft is something they should be ashamed about.

• China Southern is another airline to avoid if you’re in any way “a person of size” as they join American Airlines in having all their aircraft fitted with seats just 17″ wide.

• The biggest abomination comes from ANA which has somehow managed to configure its 777-300 aircraft with seats that are just 16.5″ wide! I can’t be sure that they actually fly these across the Pacific but that’s hardly the point! No route, regardless of length, should offer seats that narrow…it’s not healthy.

There’s an ANA 777-330 variant with seats just 16.5″ wide – avoid if at all possible! Image courtesy of Aero Icarus via Flickr

• Asiana was one of the big winners when it came to seat pitch but the airline lets itself down when it comes to seat width – 3 of their 5 aircraft type offer seats  just 17″ wide. On the flip side to that, if SeatGuru is to be believed (and thedesignair.net confirms this number), the airline also offers the aircraft with the widest Economy class seats at a gargantuan 21″.

• As I’ve already mentioned, JAL is introducing the Sky Wider seat on a number of its routes and, with a 19″ seat width on the 777-300, that’s an excellent option if you can be sure of booking it.

• Seat width is where Singapore Airlines comes good after the mediocrity it showed in the seat pitch department . Seats 19″ wide across its TPAC aircraft is good news for its flyers.

• Cathay Pacific gets an honorary mention for only having one aircraft type (747-400) with seats narrower than 18″…and I’m not convinced they fly those across the Pacific any more (but I’m not 100% sure). Avoid the 747s and you’ll be ok on Cathay.

Bottom Line

The all around winner is Korean Air with a consistent set of products offering 33″ of seat pitch and 18″ of seat with.

The airlines to avoid if you possibly can are primarily the North American carriers. While they’re not all equally terrible on seat width they are all equally bad when it comes to seat pitch. With so many carriers to choose from for TPAC travel why would you want to put yourself on one of these airlines?

Based on these numbers alone my top-4 choices of airline and aircraft would be as follows:

1. Asiana A330-300
2. JAL 777-300 with Sky Wider seats
3. Any Korean Air aircraft
4. JAL 787-9 with Sky Wider seats.

Hopefully this will be of use to someone reading this. Please bear in mind the assumptions I’ve made while compiling this information and use the figures as a guide only – seat dimensions are important but they’re not the be all and end all of air-travel.

Featured image: Luke Lai via Flickr