(NEXSTAR) – Budget airline WestJet’s recent announcement about what it’s newly-reconfigured seats will — and will not — do is creating a stir among travelers with different in-flight habits.
The Calgary, Alberta-based carrier announced recently that 43 of its Boeing 737-8 MAX and 737-800 aircraft will be overhauled to add “a refreshed range of seating options” — of which only those in its Premium and Extended Comfort sections will recline.
At the moment, all seats on those aircraft are economy, and the “vast majority” can be reclined, Canada’s CBC News reports.
The newly-designed planes will feature 12 seats in the Premium cabin that come with “ergonomically contoured seat cushions, reclining seat backs and a large headrest with four-way adjustment capability,” the same as those in the airline’s 787-9 Dreamliner fleet.
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Behind a divider are the Extended Comfort and Standard Economy sections. Standard seats in the Economy cabin have a fixed back, with choices ranging from “less space at the back to more space near the front of the cabin.”
Jennifer Booth, a spokesperson for WestJet, told Nexstar in a statement that, “Through our guest user testing, half indicated they preferred a fixed recline, to avoid feeling impacted by other passengers encroaching upon their space.”
“I generally don’t recline my seat, but some of Westjet’s more recent new destination flights I’ve been on are at pretty awful times that you would definitely want to sleep on, where that recline would be nice,” one member of the WestJet Reddit community wrote. “Iceland and Mexico City are good examples of Westjet destinations where being in a single aisle plane with no ability to recline wouldn’t be very fun (6 hours, 45 minutes and 5 hours, 15 minutes, respectively).”
Selling seats that don’t recline is certainly not new when it comes to budget airlines, however — see Spirit, Allegiant, easyJet and other carriers.
WestJet, which serves 19 states as well as Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, noted in a news release that its new “ultra slim-line seats” will also create enough room to add another row of seating, potentially lowering the cost of tickets.
Critics of the announcement see the new seating system benefiting the airline more than its passengers, however.
“The imagination of airline marketers never stops to astound me,” John Gradek, a McGill University lecturer and expert in aviation management and supply chain management, told CBC Radio. “The depths they will go through kind of give people an impression that if I pay more, I get more. But, you know, right now, it’s like you pay more to get what you had.”
The first newly-configured aircraft is set to make its debut later this month with the remaining 42 scheduled for early next year, Booth told Nexstar.
