Elbow Room En Route as Southwest Widens Seats on Max Jets

While any additional space might be welcomed among U.S. travelers — a 2012 federal report found 69 percent of adults were overweight — the promotional value of Southwest gaining less than one inch of seat width was questioned by Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at Fairfax, Virginia-based consultant Teal Group. The “ultimate commodity market” is U.S. domestic flying, Aboulafia said in a phone interview. “People go to a website, click on price, period.”