While news that airfares to the U.K. have officially hit a three-year low is great for travelers, it isn't necessarily as great for national carrier British Airways, which is clearly looking for ways to make up the lost revenue: this week, BA has announced that it will reconfigure its Boeing 777 planes flying in and out of Gatwick Airport to have ten seats across in economy class instead of the current nine. The move will add 52 total seats to each plane and change the passenger-per-lavatory ratio from 25 to 30. (As one of the airline's major hubs, this will affect long-haul flights between London and destinations like New York, Hong Kong, and Cape Town.) The new seating arrangements will kick in by 2018, at which point BA will begin to "densify" its fleet of planes that go in and out of Heathrow. There are fewer 777s in Gatwick, which make it a somewhat easier task to begin with.
Unsurprisingly, many people are unhappy with BA's plan to decrease seat size, but Willie Walsh, CEO of the airline's parent company IAG, says that having more seats on the plane will make for less expensive ticket prices and that the new, slimmer seats will also be fitted with brand new in-flight entertainment systems as a way to soften the blow. He also noted that many of BA's competitor airlines, including Emirates, Air France (not on all routes), and Air New Zealand, already have ten-across configurations.
While the more-people-per-row idea is new to BA, the maneuver is just the latest in a series of cost-cutting moves. In 2015, the airline hired Alex Cruz, founder of the Spanish low-cost airline Vueling, as its new chief executive, a decision that made many industry analysts suspect that Cruz's mandate was to streamline BA's budget by implementing some of the same policies used by discount carriers, such as charging for checked bags and food on board. Sure enough, British Airways cut its longstanding unaccompanied minors program earlier this year, citing less participation, and some angry passengers have recently reported that their second in-flight meal had been replaced with a fun-sized candy bar.
Although passengers hoping to take advantage of the favorable pound-to-dollar conversion rate may want to hurry and plan their trip to London before 2018, they may also want to take British Airways's own advice and fly Virgin Atlantic instead.