Apparently, class warfare will now be conducted in the friendly skies.
First they took our salaries, then they took our benefits. Now, they're taking our leg space.
Two airlines, Jet Blue and WestJet, are shrinking the space between seats in coach in order to give more leg room to those flying first class.
From CNN.com:
http://www.cnn.com/...
JetBlue and Canada's WestJet are cutting legroom for some nonpremium seats. At the same time, they're increasing legroom for seats in higher-priced sections.
JetBlue, a longtime champion of legroom, still says it offers the "most legroom of any other carrier throughout coach." Now it's cutting leg distance from 33 inches to 32 inches in 11 rows aboard its fleet of 52 Embraer E190 planes.
The extra space will be taken up by two more rows of seats near the front of the cabin with 38 inches of legroom.
And why are they doing this? Why, in pursuit of the all-mighty dollar, of course.
The change puts JetBlue on track to rake in $150 million in additional revenue this year, says a spokeswoman.
This may strike some as a minor issue, but the action seems emblematic of the way the world is going these days - take as much as one can from the working- and middle-classes and give it to the wealthy. At this rate, we'll all be flying steerage in a few years.