Porter Air reduces seat pitch as it resumes operations

When passengers return to Porter Air next month they’ll notice a change on board. And a few more people, too. After an 18-month hiatus the carrier is slated to resume flying in mid-September and during the down time it replaced its seats on board. It also added an additional row.

The company’s updated seat map website shows 78 seats in 20 rows on board its Q400 fleet. Previously it flew with just 19 rows in the cabin.

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Seating manufacturer Expliseat and De Havilland announced offerability of the TiSeat E2 on the Q-400 at the 2019 Paris Air Show. India’s SpiceJet served as the launch customer.

Read More: Porter to join the jet era, add Embraer E195-E2 fleet

It is a lighter seating option and allows for cabin densification, up to 90 if certain other adjustments are made.

And now Porter Air shows up as a customer on the Expliseat website. This suggests it is the supplier for the reconfigured cabin.

Figure an inch or two of pitch disappear as part of this change. Though, as with other new slimline seat designs, the impact on passenger knees might be less pronounced.

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Cabin Densification for Porter Air

Adding the extra row of seats brings an opportunity for extra ticket sales, of course. It also brings potential harm for the company’s brand.

Porter’s marketing position always showed it as a premium value airline, with more space and better service on board. It also offers “complimentary premium snacks in-flight, along with beer, wine, soft drinks, coffee and tea.”

Those premium bits, along with service to Billy Bishop Airport, were a big part of its appeal for travelers.

But now, as competition heats up downtown, the company is giving up on a part of that premium experience.

Then again, if the extra legroom wasn’t driving incremental revenue per ticket, does that marketing position matter?