this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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76
Cramped conditions questioned on recent WestJet flight (www.ctvnews.ca)
submitted 2 days ago by SamuelRJankis@sh.itjust.works to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[–] SamuelRJankis@sh.itjust.works 36 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Since one of the top post here this week is from Fox News I wanted to take the opportunity to let people know how bad news is even from real news organizations and they should probably avoid interacting with places like Fox altogether.

This is a pretty widely reported about Westjet cutting the legroom. Almost all these articles has little useful information and largely just convey a sentiment that people should be angry at Westjet.

To provide examples of useful information this information took me about 25 minutes to gather:

  1. These sites show how small the seat are even on a global level.

Has most of the airline - https://www.airlinequality.com/info/seat-pitch-guide/

Has less airlines but different plane model - https://www.netflights.com/useful-tips/legroom-chart

  1. The Toronto Star article shows that more than half the seats is the smallest size.

  2. Pitch is a industry term that doesn't clearly represent actual leg room.

  3. Westjet does not present this information clearly when booking to allow the customer to make a informed decision.

  1. This for an airline cater to taller people, proportionally longer femurs and probably larger back sides. The global adult femur length is around 18 to 20 inches accounting for the factors above these seat barely fit most adults in Canada.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/cramped-conditions-questioned-on-recent-westjet-flight/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/westjet-seat-overhaul-pause-9.7014320

https://globalnews.ca/news/11601466/westjet-shorter-legroom-flights-costs/

This Toronto Star one actually has some useful information:

https://archive.is/20260107185039/https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/28-inches-is-torture-viral-video-captures-lack-of-legroom-in-some-westjet-flights-what/article_4d3ec532-d038-4a8b-8a21-1129137cee42.html

[–] eightys3v3n@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Thank you.

I wish there was one article that had all this info instead of basically nothing like the CTV article -_-

I would probably pay for a news site that provided simple and verifiable information and links elsewhere like that rather than wordy writeups and crappy summaries or stolen videos.

[–] SamuelRJankis@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think that is the crux of it aside from readers having little expectations of being informed for these reportings, it also seems that the news outlets no longer have viable revenue models that allow them to staff to the level it would take to write proper articles which is why the Toronto Star was the best out of them.

Will point out that CBC does take a lot of revenue from us collectively and this low effort type of reporting is become very common for them. That's addition to clearly trying to pander certain crowds with titles like this

Greenland has become the island that could break NATO

I'll still defend them as being the best large scale news outlet in Canada but they're becoming a astonishing poor place to be informed about events.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The CBC does a remarkably good job considering how their budgets have been repeatedly cut, relative to inflation, at the same time that their ad revenue has been in stay decline (same as everyone else).

And yet the CPC wants them axed, because the Republicans have shown them that conservative-owned media is one of the main ways to shift the Overton window further right, and public broadcasting/reporting is a major obstacle to them. Unbiased, accurate reporting doesn't align with their goals.

[–] SamuelRJankis@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I would file this under socialized things Liberals slowly ruined and Conservatives threaten to destroy the second they get in power.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

What the flying fuck. I'm only 6', and in 30" seats, my knees were already touching the chair in front in an already uncomfortable seating position. I could squeeze in tighter a bit, but only with a painfully small hip angle. With losing 2", I'd only fit with my knees in front of the seat next to me. Three men of high-average height couldn't reasonably fit into these seats next to each other, I reckon.

I'd probably need to stand in the aisle the whole flight, then sue in small claims court if I didn't get at least full refund.

The only way losing 2" could work would be with hard-backed chairs, since they'd be thin enough that you could fit, but I don't think it's safe for many to sit, with limited possible movement, on hard chairs for any length of time.

What a disaster. And all to get, like, 2% more seats on a plane? Not to mention how much retrofitting 22 planes cost. Such a colossal fuck up.

[–] SamuelRJankis@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I'm 6'2" and things were already tight for me as well.

The problem with thier shuffling method is it compounds the already bad flight delays(there's also the carry-on shuffle they caused) and most of their seats won't even fit me so at a certain point you might just get bumped off the entire flight and they don't even give you a real number to make decisions with. I actually don't even know which seat fits me because aside from padding the seat angle also changes the real leg room so the pitch measurement is almost useless.

[–] scutiger@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I'm 5'7 and get uncomfortable on flights. I can't imagine a 28" seat pitch being reasonable in any way.

[–] healthetank@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 days ago

Wild. I'm a tall guy (6'5"), and I can just barely squeeze into normal seats if my wife is beside me, letting me knees flare out wide. I cant imagine I'd even fit into these seats, particularly if I didnt know/realize this was a change that had happened.

Time to avoid westjet until they sort out that shit.