Your Bag Doesn’t Deserve a Seat — While Passengers Are Stuck Waiting On The Floor, Here’s Why Airport Gates Are So Miserable

Have a look at this American Airlines gate area, and how passengers are seated. There aren’t enough seats for customers, but those with seats use chairs beside them for their bags. So while individual passengers hog empty seats, other passengers are stuck sitting on the floor.

• Do bags take priority over people? Do you get two chairs, when there aren’t enough for others to have one?

• The seats are too close together, people often leave a seat empty or feel like there’s nothing available when they’d have to sit next to someone anyway. Sitting down next to someone in airport gate seating can feel intrusive.

• And why aren’t there ever enough seats?

When people at the airport terminal are sitting on the floor but your bags take priority.
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If you want a seat where someone has placed there bag, just walk up to them and ask “Is anyone sitting here? Would you move your bag so I can sit?”

Of course some people would rather sit on the dirty floor than on the dirty chair sandwiched in between two other people while on the floor they can at least spread out.

If someone says the seat is “saved” you can even just take it anyway, promising to move when their companion shows up. Seat saving can be legitimate, maybe the other passenger is buying food or in the restroom, but that’s the perfect response to a seat saver who is lying.

The reason airport gates are crowded without enough seats isn’t an accident, though.

• Airports make money from concessions, not seating. Retail, food, and duty-free shops bring in rent, and airports usually take a cut of sales, so terminals are designed to maximize passenger flow into stores rather than leaving big gate areas for seating. (That’s why several airports, like DFW and Chicago O’Hare, actually removed moving walkways – since those caused passengers to speed past stores instead of wandering in.)

• Gates are expensive real estate, and busy airports push for high utilization. Multiple flights may be scheduled at the same gate within a short time, creating bursts of passengers far larger than the seating footprint was meant to hold.

• Passengers tether to gates. Even when other seating is available nearby, people want to sit right at the gate to be first in line, to hear announcements, or to watch the counter for standby and upgrade clearing. This creates crowding even if the terminal has plenty of total seating.

• Operational Irregularities. Delays, rolling cancellations, and missed connections keep more people in the gate area than expected. A gate designed to cycle one aircraft every hour may suddenly be holding three flights of passengers at once.

• Designed to planes with fewer seats and lower load factors. Many airports were designed decades ago, before load factors consistently ran in the 85–90% range and before planes were densified with more seats (11 years ago an American Airlines 737 had 150 seats, now it has 172). What was “enough” seating in the 1980s or 1990s no longer fits today’s packed cabins.

Charlotte airport

Charlotte airport

Not only that, but the seats aren’t configured for how people behave. And that means each seat doesn’t cover as many passengers.

• People put their belongings on seats because there’s nowhere else to put them. Even seats with a simple hook would obviate the need to use a seat for your jacket.
  
• People want personal space, and are reluctant to sit beside someone – so they often leave a space when sitting down. Sitting down between two people can be awkward, and those people don’t want it either which is why they spread out over into the seats beside them as though they’re saving space on a Southwest flight.

Washington National

Washington National

Airports mostly seem to have these same awful seats, everywhere you go as well.

Airport seating is built to withstand constant heavy use by thousands of people a day. Materials like metal frames and vinyl or leather-like upholstery are chosen because they’re resistant to spills, tearing, and easy to clean.

And they’re modular. Airports can install them in long rows, move them around, or swap out damaged sections without replacing the whole set. The look is intentionally generic. Airports don’t want trendy furniture that will look dated in five years. A neutral black/grey seat with metal arms “fits” anywhere from Miami to Minneapolis.