One seat on this American Airlines regional jet has a hard table where a seat cushion should be. This seat isn’t broken. They set it up this way on purpose. And, no, you don’t have to worry that you’ll somehow get assigned to this back row window torture device.
This particular plane is a 20-year old ex-Republic E170 flying for Envoy Air. There are actually 56 planes flying like this though:
- 43 for wholly-owned regional carrier Envoy Air, of which 6 were owned outright and 37 were leased as of the end of last year
- 13 held by Republic Airways
What this table in the seat does is make it not a seat. The plane would otherwise have 66 seats and run into problems with American’s pilot union contract.
- Blocking seat 21F keeps the plane to 65 seats.
- There are pilot contract ‘scope’ limits for jets with 66 – 76 seats. American can’t have these planes total more than 40% of their mainline narrowbody fleet.
Some of you will wonder, why put the seat there at all then if they can’t use it? And the reason is simple: leaving the space empty is not certified, and a lot more work and cost to certify.
- A hard cover can easily get approved as a ‘non-occupiable position’ while preserving the basics of the cabin from seat track loads, sidewall clearance, and crashworthiness assumptions. An open space beside a passenger seat takes a lot more work and fresh certification.
- Besides, the seat pair is a structural assembly. On 2-2 regional jet seating, the aisle and window will share legs, floor track attachments, trim, and are certified together. Removing one seat involves custom work.
- And this way they get to keep the interior closer to a standard layout, not have unique parts, and in theory restore it later if scope rules changed.
American isn’t the only airline that blocks seats this way. For instance, Japan Airlines blocks a coach seat on Boeing 737-800s operating domestic flights. People call it ‘the cheek splitter 9000’.
I’ve been on a lot of planes around the world but this was a first.
by
u/themoldyone in
aviation
There’s no proper bulkhead or seat in front of this aisle seat and that’s treated as a safety hazard for any passenger that might be seated there. You can’t just remove that aisle seat, or else you’d recreate the same problem for the passenger in that seat in the row behind. So they keep the seat there (effectively as a bulkhead) to deactivate it.
The American Airlines blocked seat isn’t for safety. Often seats are blocked so that the airline doesn’t go over a tranche of 50 seats and require an extra flight attendant. 150 seats means 3 flight attendants, 151 would mean 4 flight attendants and that’s costly. United Airlines actually plans to block middle seats on its new Airbus A321XLRs in order to fly with one fewer flight attendant.
In the case of American Airlines it’s about pilot rules. American Airlines pilots came to an agreement with the airline over what flying ‘belongs to them’ and what flying could be outsourced to cheaper regional carrier pilots. And American has to stick to those rules. A 65-seat plane keeps them kosher, whereas 66 seats would take up a precious slot in the 66-76 seat category. And this tray table means that’s not a real ‘seat’.
Pilots can be little cry babies sometimes. One seat? Get over it.
Need to start automating the pilots jobs.
Maybe they could just sew a giant stuffed Winnie the Pooh to the seat back and seat cushion instead of using a table? =)
Pilots make huge paychecks, refuse to work, complain about everything and badmouth their companies. Ridiculous
That photo is suspect. And looks like AI. Why is there another row of seats behind the bulkhead? And that isn’t the table design that’s in the seat. It is table secured by the seatbelt. Did you make that photo?
Jason, a 5-year Envoy First Officer makes $120,750/yr. A 5-year Captain makes $176,750. That’s not chump change but it’s hardly a “huge” paycheck.
As a pilot, if you’re unhappy go ahead and fly the plane yourself. See how far you get. But hey let’s call us a bunch of cry babies. Go ahead and drive your car. Oh that’s right, you have a higher chance of getting killed in a car accident. Imbecile.
Instead of falling for the pit-the-passengers-against-the-crews trap, please consider that this is actually a failure of management, not the workers or the consumers. (Or, just keep playing into our oligarchs hands… yeah…)
@CHRIS — No.
I was sure this one would bring out the usual suspects with their repetitively ignorant comments, and it certainly did!
@Troy Reb — You could copy-and-paste that at the end of nearly every comment section at VFTW, and you’d be somewhat correct, though, also, you’d be projecting…
Why not make a typographical error and change 151 to read and stick legally to 152? You spend money and complaints for nothing. Let the seat be a charity seat for a refugee in dire need. And do not forget that seat includes free food in case you have to decide between them starving to death on the plane or feeding a starving person.
You are a bunch of idiots and heathens. Boy dies the greatest Country in this world know all about what God means?
Wanna see a lefty in a dilemma?
Point out to them their unions are why the US is basically the only country stuck using outdated, inefficient engines on their regional jets.
The Embraer E2 series is available and far more efficient, but the pilots have a scope clause in à contract saying it’s too big and heavy…so that’s that!
No dilemma. Because of pilot scope the passengers are flying on mainline aircraft instead. Nice try though.
I’m more worried about the absolute nonexistent legroom in the row behind this one. This picture is suspect, it is likely AI.
I flew a plane once when that seat wasn’t blocked, a seat was damaged and so the replacement assembly was without it. I had to work really hard to keep the plane flying correctly. The trims were always needing adjustments, the throttles never lined up under my hand, the landing gear wasn’t retracting without a few tries and the nave lights kept blinking. Yeah, I worked up a sweat. The copilot didn’t want any part in this, so he switched with that passenger.
I’m not a real pilot, never flew passenger planes but I’m just trying to make a joke about one seat with a passenger in it. What difference does it make to a pilot? And why one of the best seats has that table built onto it.
At least they can be creative, put a small pet-sized engine part there.
“Maybe they could just sew a giant stuffed Winnie the Pooh to the seat back and seat cushion instead of using a table? =)” Blow up pilot from Airplane!
“The Embraer E2 series is available” Sadly it is not available as there have been no orders and (I believe) that line is not active (not trying to be nit picky). The E190E2 and E195E2 are in fleets, in production, and on order. There is a backlog of 174 E175s (original) basically because the US carriers are ordering that and not the E175E2 for the reasons mentioned. So, the only 175s being produced are the original design and the only 190/5s bring produced are the E2s. Seems there is a simple solution: the union could agree that the 175E2 will be treated as a 175(original) for scope purposes. The airlines get an improved plane and nothing really changes for the union.
Funny seeing the crying pilots post. As someone that actually went to the #1 private aviation university in the country I can say they are the biggest premadonnas. Yes I am rated CFI.
The pilot unions just need to be outlawed along with all the others. They just try to control the industry with thug tactics. Reality is they are mostly alcoholic glorified bus drivers.
Maybe they can make that a seat that a wider person can sit next to so they don’t encroach on another person. Then nobody is uncomfortable and the single larger erson isn’t forced to pay for two seats. Win win.
Pilots are egomaniacal douche bags who are single handedly driving American Airlines into the ground. With the money these assholes make, they should be concentrating on getting the passengers where they have to go but instead, they’d rather destroy the entire airline with their bullshit games.