Revealed: The least uncomfortable seats in British Airways’ ‘densified’ economy plane cabins

British Airways is promising much bigger seatback entertainment screens on its high-density Boeing 777 aircraft – but won’t say by much how the seats themselves are shrinking.

As The Independent first revealed in 2016, BA is squeezing an extra 52 seats into its wide-bodied Boeings based at Gatwick.

Most of the additional capacity is achieved by adding one extra seat to each economy row. At present they are nine abreast, in a 3-3-3 configuration. The refit adds a 10th seat, with a 3-4-3 formation. This is common across the industry, on airlines including Air New Zealand and Emirates.

Some space is saved by narrowing the two aisles by a couple of inches. But in addition each economy seat – known by BA as World Traveller – must shrink.

British Airways will not reveal how much narrower the new seats will be. But its part-owner, Qatar Airways, has already densified some 777s. In that process, the economy seat width shrank from about 18.5 inches to 17 inches, ie by around 9 per cent.

BA’s refit is likely to reflect similar figures. Seat pitch – the distance from the front of one seat to the front of the next, used to assess legroom – remains at 31 inches.

The Independent can reveal that there are 27 rows of economy seats, all but five of them with 10-abreast seating. For couples, the optimal seats for elbow room are in row 42: either A and B, or J and K. This is where the cabin begins to narrow, with only eight seats in a row.

The densification programme aims to reduce BA’s costs per seat to compete with Norwegian, which is expanding rapidly at the Sussex airport.

But while the seats are getting smaller, seatback screens are getting larger. In economy, the entertainment screen area will be almost three times larger than currently.

Screens have “gesture control to navigate the interface like using a tablet”, says BA. In addition, there will be USB sockets at every seat, for recharging mobile.

The first of the high-density aircraft will be deployed on routes to Cancun in Mexico, the Dominican Republic resort of Punta Cana and the Jamaican capital, Kingston. But passengers on all long-haul routes from Gatwick will experience it by next year – including on the 12-hour-plus trip to Mauritius.

Passengers prepared to pay extra for World Traveller Plus, BA’s premium economy cabin, will get “a fully adjustable six-way headrest to suit customers of all heights”, plus a cocktail table and a mains socket for British, European and US plugs. The screen area will be four times larger.

Sean Doyle, British Airways’ director of network and alliances, said: “World Traveller Plus appeals to a broad mix of both leisure and business travellers.

“In response to demand we’re increasing the size of the cabin so we can offer more of these popular seats to our customers, while keeping the cabin intimate and retaining the expert, attentive service that our travellers love.”

British Airways was once the largest carrier at Gatwick, but ceded that position to easyJet — whose biggest base is at the Sussex airport. BA’s operation at Gatwick has grown by 40 per cent in the past five years. This summer it has 28 per cent more slots as a result of buying take-off and landing rights that belonged to the now-defunct Monarch.