by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:03 PM ET, Tue October 24, 2017
If you travel often, we have some bad news.
United Airlines announced the carrier will be adding 21 more seats to their Boeing 777-200 planes over the next several years.
According to the Los Angeles Times, United operates the Boeing 777-200 planes for long-haul flights and will begin reconfiguring seating plans from rows of nine to rows of 10 in order to accommodate more passengers per flight.
Despite the addition of more seats, airline officials claim the 31 inches of legroom for economy class and 34 inches for Economy Plus class will not change. The seating plan alterations for the Boeing planes will also include the addition of 50 lie-flat business class Polaris seats.
Officials revealed the new seats will be added to 90 of United's Boeing 777-200s in the coming years and will bring the total number of economy seats on each flight to 242.
As for other carriers which have made similar changes, American Airlines added more seats to its fleet of Boeing 777-200 economy rows, which helped pack an extra 42 passengers on each plane.
Packing more people onto each flight is the worst-case scenario for many passengers. As a result of similar changes across the industry, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled earlier this year that the Federal Aviation Administration should investigate the safety factors behind smaller airplane seats.
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