If the idea of even less leg room on your flight seem incomprehensible, "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" might just change your mind.
The comedy show put together a simulation and the results look kind of cozy...if "cozy" meant using the person behind you as a human pillow while they get to use you as a blanket in return.
The show's comedic take comes after Air Canada announced it planned to "densing up" its fleet last Wednesday. The practice would see the carrier add more seats to its current crop of planes at the cost of less legroom to make more money on the same flights. Air Canada says it could add as many as 22 seats on its Rouge planes, while currently flying five Boeing 777 jets outfitted with an extra 100 seats, according to the Ottawa Citizen.
So what does this mean for the consumer? Well if "22 Minutes'" take is any indication, there are some advantages to downsizing from 30-plus inches of space to just three. For starters, passengers wouldn't have to squint to see the entertainment unit and... well, that's about it, really.
The trend towards more, slimmer seats and less legroom isn't unique to Air Canada though.
Spirit and Airlines have gone ahead with installing new chairs as of last year. Spirit's chairs come fixed with 28 inches of leg room per person and can no longer recline. Southwest meanwhile has opted for slimmer chairs that can now recline two inches instead of three, the Daily Mail reports.
Putting passengers in 76-centimetre-pitch seats "is standard practice now," said Walter Spracklin, a transportation analyst at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto. "It's the norm. It's not like a competitor is offering a better product solution for the same price," he told the Ottawa Citizen.
On Tuesday, Air Canada announced it would expand its budget carrier, Rouge, to Calgary and Vancouver. The move would service some of current routes out west with widebody Boeing 767 jets capable of carrying 264 passengers, for a 25 per cent boost in seating compared to their older planes.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes airs on CBC TV Tuesday nights at 8:30 p.m. Catch more clips of the show on Facebook and Twitter.
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