Randy's Journal: Archives
14 March 2006
War of inches
Airplane interiors - now that's a topic that really gets people squirming in their seats!
The blog we did a couple of weeks back about the so-called "7 inch" difference between the A320 and the 737 turned out to be one of the more controversial topics we've done.
Some people took it quite personally. We've now posted your thoughts on the subject in our comments section. For example:
"I am convinced that Boeing senior management does not fly their competitor's product in coach class."
Au contraire. As it happens, I just rode back-to-back flights on the 737 and A320 during my recent trip to Australia. I flew on Virgin Blue, on a Next-Generation 737. And I also flew on a Jetstar A320. They were both in an all-economy six abreast seating configuration. And quite frankly there was not much difference.
But I'm not trying to convince anybody one way or another, or trying to say that the 737 is better from a comfort point of view. I'm just saying that the difference is not great. And that on short-range flights, most people are more concerned about their fare and schedule. I'll talk more about that in a minute.
The 737 interior stands out in a number of ways. It offers soft, indirect lighting. It has a smooth, sculptured ceiling, giving the cabin a more open, spacious feel. The curved ceiling panels offer up to three additional inches of headroom. And longer overhead stowage bins give passengers more storage space by eliminating the need for an internal support brace.
Anyway, the idea of the earlier blog was simply to set the record straight. To point out the fact that when Airbus talks about "7 inches," that dimension is on the outside of the A320. And that an outside measurement has little to do with interior comfort.
Yes, the A320 is a wider fuselage. And on the inside, at seat bottom, or knee level, that equates to about 5.8 inches wider - or less than an inch per passenger in six abreast economy class.
But at the level people perceive comfort - around head and shoulders - the difference is less than three inches in the cabin, or less than a half inch per seat. For all practical purposes, most people can't tell the difference.
Now, in one key way, I think this all accomplished something interesting. It got a robust discussion going. Airliners.net has had quite a few posts on the subject.
And some of the people posting to that site caught on to another key point I was trying to make: that schedule reliability can be a much higher decision factor from a passenger point of view than a minor difference in cabin width.
One participant in the Airliners forum, after flying an A319 and then getting on a 737, conceded there may be a slight difference in width, but concurred with the fact that the A320 family has more technical delays:
Our A319 flight was delayed over 1/2hr when we had to shut down the engines and reset the computers because of what the pilot called "a slight computer glitch." Our 733 left right on time. Ok, sure, that's just one time, but in my 100,000 miles a year of flying over the past 2 1/2 years, I've only had one delay on a 737 aircraft based on mechanical problems, and that was a microphone in the pilots emergency oxygen mask was not working properly. It was fixed within 20 minutes. They're a very reliable aircraft.
As I said in the blog before, most people, when surveyed, say what they're really interested in on a short-range flight is on-time performance. And statistics from both manufacturers, when you compare them, show that the 737 has better on-time reliability - the A320 series has a 40% higher chance of having a delay.
But if somebody still feels that they want to ride on an A320, that's okay, too.