Less Free To Move About The Cabin

Just 10 years ago, airlines could make money on a flight that was a little over half full, because business travelers were willing to pay thousands of dollars for a ticket, compensating for unsold seats. But when the tech bubble burst in 2000, business travel and demand for expensive seats declined. The 2001 terrorist attacks also hurt leisure travel. Both trends forced many carriers to slash costs and try to find ways to fly more efficiently.

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Meanwhile, such low-cost carriers as Southwest Airlines and AirTran Airways continued to grow, spurring demand for air travel from people who may not have flown much, or as much, before. That prodded traditional carriers to match cheap fares to remain competitive. Travel-booking Web sites such as Orbitz and Travelocity also made it easier for passengers to compare fares, further reducing ticket prices.

The lower fares meant airlines could no longer rely on a few expensive tickets to keep a flight profitable. They altered their tactics to concentrate on filling planes with more passengers on cheaper tickets to offset the loss of steeper fares.

Surging fuel prices have also encouraged airlines to carry as many passengers as possible on each plane and to better match routes with the appropriate-size aircraft. The high fuel costs made it too expensive to fly jets not loaded to the gills, leading carriers to reduce capacity, hold it steady or slow growth plans.

Airlines also upgraded their technology and ticketing systems, allowing them to book flights more efficiently.

The trend of packed planes is not likely to change anytime soon, executives said, because most airlines are not going to add planes to their fleets in the near future.

"Frankly, this is the only economic way we can continue to provide low fares," said John Tague, a vice president at United Airlines, which has reduced its domestic flights by nearly 5 percent to help boost load factors. United's planes were 84 percent full through August, federal data show.

Executives said they would much rather fly with fewer passengers on each plane, which would ease strains on their networks, making it easier to recover from disruptions.

"It is much harder to manage an airline when load factors are above 80 percent than in the 60 to 65 percent range," said Scott D. Nason, a vice president at American Airlines, which filled 82 percent of its seats through August and set load-factor records each month this year.

"When a flight gets delayed or canceled, it is a problem that can be difficult to manage because there is no space for those passengers on other flights," he said. "We were forced into this environment whether we like it or not."

Passengers don't like it much, either, a feeling that was evident on an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Reagan National Airport on Monday evening -- the plane that Quate missed. Every seat on the Boeing 737 was filled. In the last row of the plane sat Alvin Mynar, 27, a building operations manager heading to Northern Virginia for a conference.

Mynar, at 5 feet 8, 280 pounds, spilled out of his aisle seat in the last row of coach. He hates flying, he said, especially on packed planes.

"I feel bad for the girl sitting next to me," he said, turning to look at the woman squished in the middle seat. "We just accept this because we are really just a bunch of cows."

A passenger heading to the restroom nicked Mynar's elbows, forcing him to cross his arms over his chest for much of the flight.

"I feel like an overstuffed sack of potatoes," he said, as he flipped through a magazine.

Bill Covington, a stocky 55-year-old accountant, felt scrunched in his middle seat, so he walked to the plane's rear galley to stretch. There, he stood for about 40 minutes, chatting with passengers who were also escaping the cramped cabin.

Covington echoed the comments of other passengers who said they understood the economic reasons behind the packed planes and saw no difference between American and other carriers in terms of cabin space. But he said he missed the days when the middle seat was usually empty and he could spread out and relax.

"I needed to give my back a breather, so I came back here," he said, scrunching up his shoulders and arms to reenact how he had wedged himself into the seat. "I've come to accept this as part of commercial airline travel. I don't like it, but you have to adapt. . . . I can't remember the last time I was on a plane that wasn't full."