Avianca ends reclining seat in economy class – 07/25/2023 – Tourism

Avianca has just reconfigured its Airbus A320 fleet, which operates in the Americas, in order to increase the number of seats on the planes. To that end, it eliminated business class and installed non-reclining seats throughout economy class.

Even on longer international flights, such as between São Paulo and Bogotá, which last six hours, there are no reclining seats in economy class. Only the seats in the first rows, with more expensive fares, can be reclined.

The discomfort of passengers, especially on night flights, is evident, as well as the difficulty sleeping – people contort themselves to find some position. Those who sit next to the window rest their heads against the side. Those in the middle seat and those in the aisle try to lay their heads on the table in front of them, and sometimes on their own shoulders with the help of a neck pillow. Among families, travelers try to support those next to them and sometimes pile up with each other.

The refurbishment of the planes is part of a restructuring process at Avianca, the largest airline in Colombia and one of the largest in Latin America, which, in 2020, during the pandemic, filed for Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Law, something similar to a request for judicial recovery. At the end of the following year, the company announced the renegotiation with creditors and its reorganization plan.

The replacement of reclining seats for non-reclining seats, which is part of this plan, allows for even smaller space between rows (71 cm in the case of economy class).

With that, more seats could be installed. According to Avianca, the reform provided a 20% increase in the number of seats, rising from the old 150 seats to 180. As the non-reclining seats are lighter, even with the expansion, according to the company, there was fuel savings. The change also reduced maintenance costs.

In all, 104 Airbus A320 aircraft were reconfigured in less than two years. The company also has 13 Boeing 787s, and in this case, the economy class has reclining seats — most of these planes are used on routes to Europe, and there is currently a daily flight between São Paulo and Bogotá.

According to Avianca, the change in the Airbus A320 fleet will make it possible to offer tickets at more competitive prices in the Americas.

The cost of discomfort, however, can be high for the passenger, according to Luciana Palombini, a physician specializing in sleep-related research and treatments.

“That’s bad for your health,” she tells Sheet. “We at the Brazilian Sleep Association [ABS] We are completely against it. Not reclining anything is extremely uncomfortable, it’s to end sleep”, says she, who, in addition to being a member of the ABS, is the coordinator of the Instituto do Sono de São Paulo.

According to the doctor, “the sitting position increases the sympathetic activity of the nervous system, that is, it leaves the body in a state of alertness, awake”. When we lie down, on the other hand, she explains, it increases parasympathetic activity, which reduces heart rate, blood pressure and adrenaline. “The closer we are to lying down, the easier it is to relax and fall asleep,” she says.

According to Palombini, the discomfort of the seat adds to other typical travel conditions, especially on flights to destinations with time zone differences, which increases jet lag, a temporary sleep disorder. “A bad sleep can derail the entire trip,” she says. “Some people, when they sleep badly, take up to three days to recover. If it’s a professional trip, there may be worse performance and difficulty focusing for those who arrive and soon have an important meeting”, she says. “For leisure trips, you can lose a few days with a malaise.”

Regarding the discomfort of non-reclining seats, Avianca stated that its seats pre-tilt 1 inch (2.54 cm). It’s a subtle inclination, similar to the one that reclining seats on planes also already have.

“It is important to emphasize that this is part of a change in Avianca’s business model, to become more competitive, which allowed us to expand our operation in the country”, he told Sheet the company’s commercial director, Gustavo Esusy.

With that, according to him, in addition to Rio and São Paulo, which were already served by Avianca before the pandemic, it was possible to expand the offer of flights to Belo Horizonte and Manaus.

The number of flights in the country grew from 1,262 in the first half of 2022 to 1,769 in the first half of 2023, and the number of passengers, considering the same period, rose from 159,509 to 269,846. “The Brazilian welcomed the new Avianca”, he says.

When consulted, Anac (National Civil Aviation Agency) stated, through its press office, that there is no regulation on the inclination of seats or even on a minimum distance between the rows of seats. Those are decisions for the plane manufacturer and the airline.

Questioned for this report, Gol, which formed a holding company with Avianca last year, the Abra Group, did not demonstrate that it was aligned with the Colombian airline on the subject of non-reclining seats. “Gol seeks to offer the greatest comfort to its passengers. To this end, all planes in the fleet have reclining seats,” said the company, through its press office.

Latam, which also went through a judicial recovery process in the United States, said that, on its planes, the seats in economy class are reclining. “Seating comfort is paramount in our experience, so we make sure our seats are ergonomic, reclining and have adjustable headrests.”

Economy class seats usually recline an average of 10 cm, reaching 15 cm in some cases. With the reduction of space between the rows, however, the possibility of reclining the seats is not unanimous, and the number of fights between those who recline the armchair and those who are sitting in the back and have their knees more squeezed has been growing.

In the United States, flights have already had to be diverted and there were even cases of emergency landings due to riots caused by this reason, especially after the emergence of the “knee defender”, the defender on his knees. It’s a small device created by Ira Goldman, a former Republican political adviser, that sells for $22 and manages to lock the front passenger seat, preventing it from reclining.

Although there is no regulation in Brazil for the distance between rows, Anac grants stamps, from range A, for more than 73 cm, to E, for less than 67 cm.