Airline Puts More Seats on Planes

United Is the Latest Airline to Cram More Seats Onto Its Planes

Courtesy of United Airlines

The airline says you won't be sacrificing leg room. 

ANDREA ROMANO 

You’ll soon have even more chances to find a seat on a flight.

United Airlines has announced that the company plans to add 21 additional seats to its Boeing 777-200 planes by reconfiguring the seating arrangements.

The good news is, your knees are perfectly safe. The bad news is, you’re more likely to be sitting in a middle seat in the new configuration.

While the seat pitch — the distance between your seat and the seat in front of you — will remain 31 inches for economy and 34 for economy plus, seating on Boeing 777-200s will now be arranged with passengers in rows of 10 rather than in rows of nine.

Boeing 777-200s are currently used on long-haul flights. United said it plans to configure about 90 planes over the next few years, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Another thing that will remain the same on all planes are the 50 lie-flat business class seats, also known as Polaris seats. So, premium spenders will still have the same number of chances to pay for the option of putting their feet up on their flights.

United is not the first airline to reconfigure its planes into rows of 10. American Airlines already has 10 seats to a row on its Boeing 777s. However, the airline had to implement a significant change in seat pitch, from 31 inches to 29 inches, to add them. British Airways is also updating its 777s to 10-seat rows by 2018. The change will likely make aisles tighter.