Airline Survey - 2009

How we work it out

WHY NO MARK OUT OF TEN?
We fly on dozens of different aircraft and airlines each year, in different cabins, on different sectors, so why couldn't we have awarded a mark out of ten? There are a number of reasons, but most practically because the results would have been so subjective as to be useless. In the office we range from five-foot tall females weighing 50 kilos to six-foot, two-inch males weighing ... considerably more.

The size you are makes a difference to everything: legroom (known here as seat pitch), the comfort of the seat width, and the seating configuration (the number of seats fitted across the width of an aircraft). It also affects the way you respond to the reclining element of the seat, particularly in business class: some passengers can make themselves comfortable in angled lie-flat seats (i.e. the flat seats which are not parallel to the floor) while others find that cradle-style seats give them more support and don't have that sliding down towards the floor effect. It depends so much on personal shape and preference.

So for that reason we have just presented you with the figures - along with some explanation to make the various ways airlines measure their seats a bit clearer - to let you make up your own mind.

AIRLINE AND AIRCRAFT
This year we have included both longhaul and short-haul aircraft (where possible).

SEAT CONFIGURATION
This refers to the way the seats are arranged across the aircraft. At first you might feel this is a little too much detail to go into, but you may change your mind once you are halfway into a long-haul flight and realise that on a different aircraft, or with a different airline, you could have had a seat where you didn't have to climb over the passenger next door to get to the toilet.

SEAT PITCH
The distance between seats, measured from a fixed point on one seat to the same point on the seat in front. The exact point differs from airline to airline, but note that new seats have thinner cushions and so offer more room despite the seat pitch measurement remaining unaltered.

SEAT WIDTH
Far more complicated than you might imagine. Airlines obtain seat width either by measuring the seat cushion, or between the armrests, or in some examples, from the outside of one armrest to the outside of the other (using the justification that the seat cushion is this wide).

SEAT LENGTH
A measurement for fully-flat seats only. This is when the seat pitch becomes redundant - the length of your fully-flat bed is what matters.

RECLINE
Can be measured in a number of different ways.

SEAT TYPE
As airlines all have different types of seats, the measurements can be made in different ways.

INDIVIDUAL SCREEN
Having your own screen means you can control which channel and programme you watch. Most systems run on a continuous loop, so if you miss the beginning of a movie you have to wait for it to come round to the beginning again.

ABILITY TO START/STOP
This is the next stage in sophistication for in-flight entertainment, and one that is only gradually being introduced across the airlines. Known in the industry as AVOD (Audio and Video on Demand) it means the ability to stop, start, rewind and pause your entertainment so you can take a break from the film you're watching to have a meal or go to sleep.

POWER SOURCE
We asked the airlines to let us know which sort of power source they offered, from US to EU or SA (South African).