Southwest Tweaks Its Seat Design

You are now free to ... have that extra piece of cake? Southwest has unveiled the new seats in its future Boeing 737s, and they're unique in that they're giving you a little more room. Specifically, as Bloomberg reports, 0.7 inches more width, for a grand total of 17.8 inches. That makes the seats what a Southwest rep tells the Fort Worth Star-Telegram are "the widest economy seats available in the single-aisle 737 market ... that gives our customers what they asked for: more space." The seats, which begin to roll out in mid-2016, also lighten the weight of each aircraft by about 200 pounds, meaning better fuel economy. (Meanwhile, it's not you, it's the airlines: Flying really is getting worse.)