Why most airline passengers can manage in economy – even on long-haul flights

Plane Talk: Each first class seat takes up 5.7 times the space allocated to the average economy passenger

How simple it seemed. Shortly after the general election result, I published a brief travel manifesto with one idea: that the planet and its travellers would be healthier if we all flew in economy class. Yes, even on long-haul flights. Because your carbon footprint is proportionate to the footprint of the space you occupy on a plane.

For evidence, I computed the environmental harm caused by a passenger in each of the four cabins on a British Airways four-class Boeing 777. (My choice was not because BA is an especially bad offender, but because the aircraft configuration offers the best opportunity to make the right calculations.)

The lowest common denominator, the economy passenger, is assigned a value of 1 (and I am being generous by using the Heathrow fleet as an example; for Gatwick-based BA aircraft the space works out at 0.9).

I calculate that each premium economy passenger (known as World Traveller Plus on British Airways) occupies 1.6 times the room of the people down the back.

The current edition of BA’s Club World, I was surprised to find, is only 3.5 times the space allotted to economy passengers, but the upgraded version fitted to the new Airbus A350 will, I think, have a larger personal footprint.

Each first class seat takes up 5.7 times the space allocated to the average economy passenger.

At the risk of becoming mathematically tedious (my specialist subject), the emissions per person will be marginally offset by the fact that the collective weight of 5.7 economy passengers is several hundred kilograms more than a single first-class traveller occupying the same space.

But since the vast majority of the weight of a loaded aircraft is the plane and the fuel, that effect is small.

“Business bad, first worst,” is the inescapable conclusion. And the chief driver of the discrepancy is the flat bed. Remove the quite understandable desire to snooze on a long overnight flight, and you can remove the flat bed. Even a London-Sydney flight can be completed in two and a half comfortable days, with a proper night’s sleep in each of Dubai and Singapore.

I contend that travellers could be feeling healthier and sharper as a result of allowing themselves the luxury of time, rather than space.

“Ridiculous,” responded Mark McElligott. “What company is going to have a member of staff out of circulation for six days instead of two? It’s not just about the money.

“This scenario would also mean employees giving up their weekends.”

Some might prefer that to giving up their sleep and/or contracting a serious case of jetlag. At least we could ask.

Julie Kay is a fan of premium economy on flights to Florida: “I refuse to sit with my knees jammed into the seat in front in economy,” she tweets.

And legalclaret chips in: “This is nonsense for several reasons. Economy class is not comfortable if you are over 6ft tall, or you (or the person next to you) is of a larger build.”

I have no wish to deny choice. Change should come not from legislation but from the demands of whoever is paying the fare; incidentally the availability of premium economy would certainly help appease downgraded business travellers. And I would hate to make life more difficult for travellers such as Ginny, who tweets: “So when I travel with my disabled partner we should fly economy, and the flight may potentially have to be diverted if he develops problems?

“We’re already disadvantaged by having to pay so much to travel, now you’re saying we shouldn’t travel at all?”

I am saying nothing of the sort. Provision for the people termed by the aviation industry “passengers with reduced mobility” (PRMs) deserves much more attention. But the majority of airline travellers can manage on economy class seats – because, of course, economy class seats are designed to fit the majority of airline travellers.

Any low-cost revolution would not have an overnight impact; for a while, planes might fly increasingly empty at the front and heavy at the back. But in time, if demand for cheap seats increases while premium passengers dwindle, airlines will start to reconfigure their aircraft to pack in more people. I don’t predict any reduction in the number of planes, but flights would increase more slowly than they might otherwise.

Your views, positive or negative, are appreciated.