Flying Off Course Fourth Edition by Rigas Doganis

Author:Rigas Doganis
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Aeronautics, Transportation, Finance, Marketing, Economics, Commercial, Airlines, Commercial - Marketing, Fiction, Aviation, Airlines - Marketing, Business & Industry, International, General, Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780415447362
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1990-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

7.5.3 High seating density

In summer 2008 British Airways was flying many scheduled services in Europe using an Airbus A320 for some flights. Typically this had 152 seats in a two-class configuration. Air France had similar seating in its A320 on European routes. This is a popular aircraft with charter airlines but they put up to 180 seats in it. If BA and charter airlines had similar round-trip costs to a Mediterranean destination, merely by putting around 18 per cent more seats in the aircraft than their scheduled competitors, the charter airlines can reduce their seat-kilometre costs by about 15 per cent. In practice, seating on British Airways would be less than 152 since several additional rows of six-abreast Economy seats may well be reduced to four abreast to provide for a larger Business class cabin. Eight rows of Business class would reduce the seating capacity to 143. The scope for higher seating densities and therefore for even lower seat-kilometre costs is sometimes greater on wide-bodied aircraft. Non-scheduled airlines such as Monarch or Thomas Cook operating Boeing 767–300 aircraft would normally expect to have around 310 seats in a charter configuration. Yet the same aircraft flown on scheduled services by British Airways, on scheduled flights to Mediterranean points such as Athens, only has 247 to 256 seats. In this case, the charter configuration increases the seating capacity by nearly 25 per cent and reduces the seat-kilometre costs by about 20 per cent.

Several factors explain the ability of charter operators to push up the seating capacities on their aircraft. With very few exceptions, charter aircraft are in a single-class layout and at a constant seat pitch (the distance between each row of seats), though some rows in the front may offer marginally more leg room, especially on longer-haul charters. No space is lost accommodating first- or business-class passengers in separate cabins with greater leg room and low seat densities. If scheduled airlines operate a three-class cabin on medium-and long-haul scheduled flights this further reduces the total seating capacity.

Whatever the cabin layout, the charter configuration will also have a lower seat pitch, that is, less distance between each row of seats, so that more seat rows can be installed within the length of the cabin. A 29 inch seat pitch would be acceptable in a short-haul charter layout, whereas 31–34 inches would be more normal for economy-class seating on a scheduled flight. On wide-body aircraft an extra seat per seat row across the cabin (e.g. 10 abreast instead of 9 abreast) would be used on the wide-body Boeing 767 for charters. Charter airlines tend to increase the floor area on the main deck of their aircraft available for seating by reducing the number of toilets and galley space and by eliminating other space uses such as coat cupboards and so on. Galley space can be reduced because in-flight catering tends to be less lavish than on scheduled flights. The absence of first- or business-class passengers helps in this. In wide-bodied aircraft, such as

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