With the average weight of an American rising, United Airlines has been forced to block a number of seats onboard its Boeing 757 aircraft. Savvy travelers, however, can take advantage of this to ensure an open middle seat on their flight.
United Airlines Blocks Middle Seats On 757
This winter, you will notice a number of seats permanently blocked onboard United’s 757 series of aircraft.
As United explains:
The temporary change is a result of the increased average customer winter weights as prescribed by the FAA. To be compliant with the current B757 weight and balance requirements, United will block specific seats between November 1 and April 30, 2023.
United is referring to a 2019 FAA circular that updated average weight requirements:
- Airlines must increase the average weight of female passengers (which includes their carry-on items) from 145 pounds to 179 pounds in summer months, and from 150 pounds to 184 pounds in winter months
- Airlines must increase the average weight of male passengers (which concludes thier carry-on items) from 185 to 200 pounds in summer months, and from 190 pounds to 205 pounds in winter months
That circular caused quite a stir by suggesting that passengers should be weighed prior to boarding. Rather than weigh each passenger to determine whether seats must be blocked on a specific flight, United has chosen general blocks of up to six seats during the winter months onboard the Boeing 757. This occurred last winter as well, then was lifted in the spring. Effective this week, it has returned in 2022.
Why the increased average weight in the winter? The problem is not simply that passengers are growing larger (though this is certainly an issue), but also that carry-on items are not weighed in the USA and the FAA has calculated that people are bringing on more items and heavier items onboard. This is exacerbated by winter coats and other accoutrements during the colder months.
Which Seats Are Blocked On United 757 Aircraft?
The following seats will be blocked through the end of April:
- 757-224 (75S) – 24B, 27E, 30B, 24E, 37B, 40B
- 757-224 (75B) – 29B, 32E, 36B
- 757-324 (75E) – 16B, 19E, 27B, 30E, 36B, 39E
When you board your aircraft this week, you may notice these signs over those seats:
Starting next week, there will be a red sleeve over the seatbelt that says “Seat inoperative – Do not occupy.” The seatbelt will also be zip-tied together.
A memo to flight attendants reviewed by Live and Let’s Fly instructs them to “monitor these seats throughout all phases of flight to ensure they remain unoccupied.” Should a passenger request one of these seats prior to pushback, they are to be referred to a member of ground staff.
Of course, this presents a great opportunity for ensuring the seat adjacent to you is open when you fly in coach. Grab one of these seats and you can be assured that no one will sit next to you.
CONCLUSION
As Americans grow larger and also bring more carry-on items onboard, the FAA has instructed airlines to re-calculate average weight, previously based on decades-old assumptions that are no longer reliable. The practical impact is a number of seat blocks on United Airlines this winter onboard the 757 aircraft, which you can use to your advantage to ensure an open seat next to you.
surely they will attempt to monetize this. Empty middle is just as much Y+ as a couple of extra inches of legroom
The revenge of the Big Mac strikes again!!!
The whole M/F/C split for weight and balance is becoming more and more difficult as gender identity issues become controversial. How do you deal with a biologically male passenger who identifies as a female or vice-versa? Non-gendered persons (code “X”) are to be treated as male for the purpose of W/B per IATA best practices, but those don’t address trans-gendered passengers. It is a lot easier to simply adopt a basic Adult/Child split, or easier still a weighted average absolute figure, and I expect to see more and more airlines do that in the coming years.
this actually has very little to do with the average weight of Americans and everything to do with how much stuff is bought onboard.
Yeah that’s what I’m guessing too
With bag fees you’d think less would be packed since people are trying to fit in a carryon wonder what’s driving the extra carryon/baggage weight
It’s simplistic to say that passenger weight has nothing to do with this. Americans are getting heavier and this is further highlighted by the fact that new checked bag fees should reduce, not increase, the weight of the plane. Something else is at work and it seems to me, as the FAA circular notes, it is heavier people. Because I strongly doubt that women suddenly just started carrying an extra 35 pounds of carry-on items…
Thanks Bill Maher.
@Matthew: I have spent my entire career working in the food industry. The level of obesity, diabetes and other diseases affecting Americans because of their food choices in alarming. Lots of reasons back into the 60’s when Government gave incentives to large food companies to produce cheap sources of calories to the population. That triggered a wave of highly processed foods and beverages that Americans eat to this date. Add to that a lifestyle of being inside due to heavy winter, great sports on TVs, easy snacking, easy access to fast food, etc… and now we have created a monster that will cripple our healthcare system. It is a much bigger problem than simply blocking middle seats on planes.
Indeed. We are UK citizens resident in Spain and visited NYC recently. We were shocked at how much extra sugar is added to products in the USA compared to their European equivalents.
Are other airlines to go this route as well? If it’s a rule…?
Guess making seats a comfortable width, with more legroom is out of the question.
I know seat pitch has shrunk but has the actual width of the seat on a 757 or a 737 changed since the 1990’s or even the 80’s? Were the aisle on aircraft narrower in the 80’s and 90’s on 757s and 737s?
Years I’ve expected that one day we would all step upon a scale ( fully loaded with all stuff ) and final price be then determined. Whilst sounding harsh, is it not a fair way to determine final cost? Seems fair to me
As a thin person who the airlines kindly put in between two large people I completely agree. They were each stealing (yes, stealing) part of my seat.
Since I am not allowed to charge them for the part of my seat I was unable to occupy the airlines should start weighing people and then sit thin people next to thin people and large people next to other large people. Or different sized seats and charge based on the seat that fits each person.
It is only fair.
This would seem fair on its face. However, you fail to take in height. I’m 6’4″ tall. Trust me I pay the difference in discomfort. I’m actually quite slender, but at my height, 180# is actually on the thin side. Could we possibly use weight and circumference as the determining factor? I promise I’ll look down as I travel down the aisle as to not accidentally send you flying.
All the more reason to have less rows of seats and more leg room. Easy fix.
As with any problem, acknowledging it’s a problem is a first step towards solving it. Since we gave up (collectively as a society) advocating for healthy lifestyles it seems like this problem will have to get much worse before it gets better.
When Michelle Obama tried to advocate for healthier school lunch options she was shouted down by the right. If someone tried today the outcry would be a rare moment of bipartisan agreement.
Obesity obviously has negative effects on everything from healthcare to the economy to the environment. While we shouldn’t place the blame on any one individual, we can certainly work towards agreement that living longer, healthier more sustainable lives is a good thing.
Or not. Yeah, nevermind, let’s just keep treating each other and ourselves like crap until it all falls apart.
No mention of the airlines reducing the pitch between seats to add a row or two on their aircraft.
Talk about fake news. I’m a pilot. Commercial airliners have a huge weight and balance surplus. They also carry a lot of non-passenger weight like freight and mail. Yes even on passenger flights. On some routes that makes them more money than the passenger tickets. I imagine that’s the real reason.
I doubt it.
Does anyone know how United is able to use average value for both body+carry on bags? Last I checked airlines had to provide a large dataset in order to avoid using the actual body/bag weights. The increase in male/female body weights in last 20 yrs is roughly 3.5/7.4 lbs. It does not warrant such a big change with overall values unless they actually increase the carry-on weight limitations.
Tim, in the spring 2021 the airlines all conducted passenger weight surveys across several airports using scales for the actual people and their luggage. “The airlines” as in every major airline and every regional did it on their own, lots of repeated work there. In the summer/fall last year, the FAA then approved each airline’s paperwork for their revised numbers. Those average weight values vary a bit from one airline to the next, but the new numbers are typically 10-15 pound higher than the 190 (summer) and 195 (winter) average adult weights the entire industry had been using. Bag weights changed too, and those values are a complicated chart. The history of these numbers goes back to the fallout from the Air Midwest 5481 crash, about 20 years ago. In the last five years or so, it had been kind of a dirty secret in the industry that the population has gotten even fatter since that disaster, and that the actual safety margins in real life weren’t no longer matching the paper calculations.
Here’s a fun thought experiment: since the passenger weight surveys were mostly voluntary, what are the odds that the most morbidly obese pax self-select out of the surveys? Hmmm
For the guy who said he’s a pilot and claims that airliners have a huge weight and balance surplus, I’d suggest you better research how airliner performance is calculated on every flight. It’s based on worst-case scenario, if the airplane snuffs an engine at the worst possible moment on the takeoff roll, then it still has to be able to climb above terrain and obstacles in the departure path using the other engine (city buildings, radio towers, hills, mountains) and be able to do that in the weather conditions on that particular day (headwind, tailwind, slippery runway, density altitude). Also, takeoff weight also has to be such that after fuel burnoff of the planned flight, the airplane won’t be above its max landing weight at its destination (easy to go over this carrying extra fuel on a day with bad weather at the destination).
Yes, on a normal takeoff then every airliner has more than enough get up and go, that’s the surplus you’re talking about, but it’s a lot more complicated than just buttoning up the doors and blasting off because big jet strong go fast good. By dismissing this article out of hand, you sound like you have more of a passenger’s limited perspective than a pilot’s understanding.
Anyway… keep eating America!
As a structural engineer that used to work in the aerospace business in the early 90’s I am always alarmed and frightened when I watch so many heavy people boarding a plane. Weight is a huge factor in whether the plane can actually get off the ground. There is a lot of safety margin in these calculations, but because people have let themselves get so heavy, even the engineers are looking around and getting a bit worried. “We didn’t calculate for this” they are thinking.