American’s “More Room Throughout Coach” Era: What Does It Teach Us?

It’s common to see people complaining online about how bad legroom is on most airlines, when flying in economy. That’s fair enough, because in many cases, legroom is pretty bad. Sometimes you’ll see people respond to those complaints by pointing out something that American did at the start of the 2000s.

I’m not sure I’ve ever specifically written about this, so I figure it makes for an interesting topic, as it also provides some valuable context on why the industry is the way it is.

American’s failed attempt to offer more legroom in economy

Going back over 50 years, airlines in the United States very much competed on product. That’s because fares in the US airline industry were regulated, so airlines couldn’t compete on price, but instead, they could only compete on schedule and product.

In 1978, we saw the Airline Deregulation Act introduced. I guess there are two ways to look at it. On the one hand, it started the slow and steady race to the bottom in terms of service. On the other hand, it started the slow and steady race to the bottom in terms of fares. Flying is cheaper than ever before, though admittedly not everyone is enjoying champagne and chateaubriand.

In 2000, American did something that was rather innovative — the airline launched its “More Room Throughout Coach” (MRTC) concept. As the name hints at, the airline decided to remove a couple of rows of seats from most planes, and introduce an average of around three extra inches of legroom in economy.

The airline spent $70 million on this project, and in total, the airline removed 7,200 seats from its 707-aircraft fleet, representing 6.4% of economy capacity. Also keep in mind that at the time, most seats already had at least 31″ of pitch, unlike nowadays, where some airlines only have 29″ of pitch. With this project, 58% of American’s economy seats had at least 34″ of pitch.

At the time, American claimed that its number one complaint from passengers involved legroom, with travelers feeling like they’re “packed in like sardines.” As you’d expect, American marketed the heck out of this, and tried to make it a competitive advantage. So from TV ads, to banners at airports, everyone knew about American’s More Room Throughout Coach product.

Within a few years, a problem became clear, though — while passengers appreciated more legroom, they weren’t willing to pay more for it. American found that it couldn’t even command a $10 revenue premium for offering more legroom in economy. Not only that, but American found it was even losing market share, because even a slight price increase was causing passengers to book with competitors.

By early 2003, American slowly began backtracking on this policy. Initially, the airline got rid of its More Room Throughout Coach concept on aircraft primarily operating leisure routes. As American’s CEO at the time, Gerard Arpey, described that decision:

“We are still retaining our popular More Room Throughout Coach product on more than 75 percent of our fleet, which translates into approximately 80 percent of our daily departures. I also want to be clear that we are not creating an airline-within-an-airline because we don’t believe a successful formula for that concept yet exists. We are simply returning to standard seating in those markets where customers tell us price – and seat availability at low prices – is predominantly how they choose a carrier.”

However, it didn’t take long for American to completely backtrack on this concept. By 2004, American eliminated the concept altogether, and added rows of seats back to planes, and in some cases, there were more seats than pre-2000.

What can we learn from More Room Throughout Coach?

So, what should our takeaway be from American’s failed Main Room Throughout Coach concept? If you ask virtually any airline executive, or most of the public, the answer is simple — the average air traveler is price sensitive, and while they say they want more legroom, they’re not actually willing to pay for it.

Now, there are some people who suggest that’s the wrong lesson to take away. They argue two points:

• The early 2000s was a really tough time for the industry, as we saw 9/11, a huge economic downturn, and several airline bankruptcies in the years that followed, so it’s not a great time to judge an initiative that improved the passenger experience
• More legroom is part of a suite of offerings, and while American invested in that, it failed to invest in other areas of the passenger experience

Personally, I think that most airline executives have the right takeaway from More Legroom Throughout Coach. No matter how much consumers claim they value a certain thing, when they go to book flights, their actual behavior might not reflect their claims.

I think one of the reasons the industry has generally become more sustainable (aside from loyalty programs) is realizing the importance of upsell and ancillary opportunities. Of course no one likes being nickel-and-dimed, but the reality is that the airline industry is a tough business, it’s highly cyclical, and even during the best of times, it’s only mildly profitable.

Airlines have to cast as wide of a net as they can. The right answer all along is what airlines eventually decided on — offer less legroom in economy as a standard, but then have an extra legroom economy section that travelers can upgrade to, if that’s something they value.

United was the first major US carrier to introduce this concept, with its Economy Plus. That launched in 1999, before American even introduced More Room Throughout Coach. It’s interesting how it took other US airlines so long to follow United’s lead on that, even though it’s now an industry standard.

At least in the United States, no airline has actually been particularly successful by differentiating itself on its standard economy product. For example, JetBlue has long offered passengers more, from more legroom, to free Wi-Fi, to seat back entertainment (long before Delta started doing those last two). But passengers haven’t actually been willing to pay more to fly with the airline.

Some might say “well Delta is a premium airline.” I mean, sort of. Delta is really good at marketing itself as premium, and is also good at investing selectively to convince travelers that it’s premium. But when you look at actual aircraft layouts, Delta certainly doesn’t have above industry seat pitch, for example.

Bottom line

In the early 2000s, American tried to differentiate itself with “More Room Throughout Coach.” The airline ripped two rows of seats out of most planes, and increased seat pitch by a few inches. The result? Well, the airline found people weren’t even willing to pay an extra $10 for a more civilized amount of space, and American even lost market share.

Make of that what you will, and it’s possible there were more factors that contributed to the lack of success of the concept. But it’s certainly something that’s cited often by airline executives, when it comes to consumers’ willingness to pay for a better economy experience.

What’s your takeaway from American’s More Room Throughout Coach experiment?