The Airline Economy Score

Name: SeatRecon Per-Airline Economy Score
Creator: SeatRecon

We rated 244,996 seats. Here’s how every airline’s economy stacks up — 221,566 rated economy seats across 223 airlines, scored on SeatRecon’s own per-seat rating tiers. 143 airlines clear the 500-seat coverage gate and are ranked; the rest are listed, unranked, below.

221,566

economy seats scored

223

airlines

143

ranked (≥500 seats)

3.2%

economy flagged

How the score is built

Every rated seat carries one of five position-based tiers. Each economy seat contributes a weight:

great = +2good = +1standard = 0be_aware = −1avoid = −2

The airline’s mean weight over its economy seats lands in [−2, +2]. It is normalized to a 0–100 scale:

score = ((mean + 2) / 4) × 100

So an all-standard cabin scores 50, an all-great cabin 100, an all-avoid cabin 0. The composite is a convenience. The defensible statistics are the raw shares — % great/good and % be-aware/avoid — shown for every airline and drawn to scale in the bar column.

Across the corpus, the 221,566 rated economy seats break down as 44 great, 10,632 good, 203,710 standard, 6,985 be-aware and 195 avoid. (Corpus-wide, across every cabin, the totals are 1,005/13,985/220,501/9,308/197 — 2 avoid seats sit outside economy.)

What this score is — and is not

These are position-based editorial ratings derived from documented seat attributes — recline, exit-row placement, lavatory and galley proximity, windowless positions, seat pitch. They are not passenger-comfort surveys, reviews, or airline quality rankings.
A low score means more seats with documented drawbacks, not a worse airline. The ratings reflect cabin-layout density choices — how tightly a cabin is packed and how many seats fall next to a galley, a lavatory or a missing window.
The composite is a convenience for ordering the table. The shares are the statistic — read the great/good and be-aware/avoid columns directly.
Full rating rubric on the methodology page.

Top 10 economy scores

The 10 ranked airlines with the highest composite economy score. Numbers only.

#	Airline	Score	% great/good	% be-aware/avoid
1	SkyWest Airlines	56.5	25.9%	0.0%
2	Hawaiian Airlines	56.3	25.4%	0.0%
3	EL AL Israel Airlines	55.0	25.0%	5.2%
4	Eurowings	55.0	19.8%	0.0%
5	Alaska Airlines	54.8	21.8%	3.8%
6	Vueling	54.5	18.7%	0.9%
7	KLM Royal Dutch Airlines	54.2	23.2%	6.4%
8	Copa Airlines	54.0	16.1%	0.0%
9	ITA Airways	53.9	15.5%	0.0%
10	Allegiant Air	53.9	15.5%	0.0%

Bottom 10 economy scores

The 10 ranked airlines with the lowest composite economy score. A low score means more seats carry a documented drawback.

#	Airline	Score	% great/good	% be-aware/avoid
143	China Airlines	44.7	0.0%	21.3%
142	All Nippon Airways	46.2	0.0%	14.5%
141	STARLUX Airlines	46.6	0.0%	13.7%
140	Japan Airlines	47.6	0.0%	8.9%
139	Shenzhen Airlines	47.7	0.0%	9.2%
138	Emirates	47.8	0.0%	8.9%
137	Thai Airways International	47.8	0.0%	8.6%
136	Bamboo Airways	47.8	1.1%	8.8%
135	Bangkok Airways	47.8	4.5%	13.2%
134	Qatar Airways	48.0	0.0%	8.0%

Economy score league table

All 143 airlines with at least 500 rated economy seats, ranked by composite score (descending). Ties break on the great/good share, then the be-aware/avoid share. The bar shows each cabin’s seat-tier mix drawn to scale — green great/good, grey standard, amber be-aware/avoid.

#	Airline	Configs	Econ seats	% gd/gr	% ba/av	Min pitch	Score
1	SkyWest Airlines	14	820	25.9%	0.0%	30″	56.5
2	Hawaiian Airlines	4	819	25.4%	0.0%	29″	56.3
3	EL AL Israel Airlines	4	696	25.0%	5.2%	—	55.0
4	Eurowings	7	1,240	19.8%	0.0%	—	55.0
5	Alaska Airlines	13	1,998	21.8%	3.8%	—	54.8
6	Vueling	5	913	18.7%	0.9%	28″	54.5
7	KLM Royal Dutch Airlines	9	1,669	23.2%	6.4%	29.1″	54.2
8	Copa Airlines	5	744	16.1%	0.0%	30″	54.0
9	ITA Airways	7	1,318	15.5%	0.0%	—	53.9
10	Allegiant Air	4	703	15.5%	0.0%	—	53.9
11	Edelweiss Air	4	950	16.5%	1.9%	29.1″	53.7
12	Virgin Australia	5	734	13.9%	0.0%	—	53.5
13	Spring Airlines	4	792	13.6%	0.9%	—	53.2
14	Volotea	4	624	11.5%	0.0%	—	52.9
15	Aeroméxico	6	996	11.2%	0.0%	—	52.8
16	Neos	3	699	11.2%	0.0%	—	52.8
17	Akasa Air	3	560	11.1%	0.0%	—	52.8
18	Discover Airlines	3	649	10.6%	0.0%	—	52.7
19	Delta Air Lines	36	4,864	13.6%	3.0%	30″	52.6
20	Aegean Airlines	3	574	10.5%	0.0%	—	52.6
21	Swiss International Air Lines	9	1,617	15.3%	4.9%	29.1″	52.5
22	Air India Express	10	1,770	10.2%	0.0%	—	52.5
23	JetBlue Airways	8	1,253	16.8%	7.5%	—	52.3
24	Virgin Atlantic	5	1,121	16.7%	7.7%	31″	52.3
25	Air Astana	7	1,074	8.4%	0.0%	—	52.1
26	Jin Air	3	771	11.9%	3.8%	29″	52.0
27	Air Transat	6	1,845	8.1%	0.0%	31″	52.0
28	TAROM	4	507	7.9%	0.0%	—	52.0
29	Lufthansa	14	3,237	7.2%	0.0%	—	51.8
30	SKY express	5	842	6.7%	0.0%	—	51.7
31	Luxair	5	725	6.5%	0.0%	30″	51.6
32	Norwegian Air Shuttle	3	564	6.4%	0.0%	—	51.6
33	WestJet	12	2,025	14.3%	7.9%	28″	51.5
34	Oman Air	5	973	6.2%	0.0%	30″	51.5
35	Condor	4	809	6.2%	0.0%	—	51.5
36	Scoot	7	1,679	11.4%	5.2%	28″	51.4
37	Air France	9	2,235	7.9%	2.9%	—	51.3
38	Aer Lingus	5	983	7.7%	2.6%	30″	51.3
39	Air Busan	6	1,267	9.0%	3.9%	28″	51.2
40	China Eastern Airlines	4	857	8.4%	4.1%	—	51.1
41	Saudia	12	3,157	4.9%	0.4%	30″	51.1
42	Frontier Airlines	4	839	13.3%	9.8%	—	51.0
43	XiamenAir	8	1,524	9.1%	5.2%	29″	51.0
44	Air New Zealand	12	2,317	8.3%	4.3%	29″	51.0
45	Air China	5	1,335	8.3%	4.4%	31″	51.0
46	Fiji Airways	8	1,288	4.9%	0.9%	31″	51.0
47	British Airways	16	2,835	9.0%	5.2%	—	50.9
48	Thai VietJet Air	3	599	6.0%	3.0%	—	50.8
49	Batik Air Malaysia	4	845	3.2%	0.0%	—	50.8
50	Bulgaria Air	5	657	3.0%	0.0%	—	50.8
51	Austrian Airlines	6	1,185	4.6%	1.7%	28″	50.7
52	JetSMART	3	612	3.9%	2.0%	—	50.5
53	Royal Air Maroc	9	1,718	3.7%	1.6%	31″	50.5
54	Air Serbia	5	750	2.9%	1.1%	—	50.5
55	easyJet	5	943	10.2%	5.8%	—	50.4
56	VietJet Air	4	1,015	4.1%	2.4%	—	50.4
57	Hainan Airlines	11	2,311	1.6%	0.0%	31″	50.4
58	Wizz Air	4	835	6.5%	5.1%	—	50.3
59	Finnair	5	1,024	11.9%	11.1%	29″	50.2
60	Juneyao Air	4	806	4.2%	3.5%	29.9″	50.2
61	China Southern Airlines	15	2,977	6.6%	6.1%	28″	50.1
62	TUI Airways	5	1,238	1.5%	1.0%	—	50.1
63	flydubai	4	630	7.6%	7.6%	29″	50.0
64	Air Premia	4	1,117	3.0%	2.9%	31″	50.0
65	Qantas	26	4,498	1.9%	1.9%	28″	50.0
66	American Airlines	16	2,530	1.1%	1.1%	30″	50.0
67	Air Canada	22	3,877	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
68	Turkish Airlines	15	3,521	0.0%	0.0%	30.7″	50.0
69	Ethiopian Airlines	14	3,479	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
70	Sichuan Airlines	16	3,344	0.0%	0.0%	32″	50.0
71	Uzbekistan Airways	11	2,084	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
72	Air Europa	7	1,794	0.0%	0.0%	30″	50.0
73	AJet	8	1,681	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
74	Volaris	8	1,638	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
75	Jetstar Airways	7	1,611	0.0%	0.0%	28″	50.0
76	Lucky Air	9	1,573	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
77	LATAM Airlines	5	1,372	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
78	Iraqi Airways	6	1,276	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
79	Cebu Pacific	5	1,263	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
80	EgyptAir	7	1,258	0.0%	0.0%	31″	50.0
81	T'way Air	5	1,183	0.0%	0.0%	29″	50.0
82	Smartwings	6	1,087	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
83	Tianjin Airlines	7	1,074	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
84	GOL Linhas Aéreas	6	1,020	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
85	Loong Air	6	1,010	0.0%	0.0%	30″	50.0
86	RwandAir	6	1,008	0.0%	0.0%	29″	50.0
87	TAP Air Portugal	5	972	0.0%	0.0%	31″	50.0
88	US-Bangla Airlines	5	959	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
89	SCAT Airlines	5	899	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
90	Icelandair	5	868	0.0%	0.0%	31″	50.0
91	Viva Aerobus	4	832	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
92	Chengdu Airlines	5	821	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
93	TAAG Angola Airlines	5	798	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
94	Azul Linhas Aereas Brasileiras	4	788	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
95	Boliviana de Aviación	5	749	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
96	Brussels Airlines	4	745	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
97	Avianca	4	739	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
98	Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL)	5	735	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
99	Scandinavian Airlines	4	709	0.0%	0.0%	31″	50.0
100	Jeju Air	4	702	0.0%	0.0%	29″	50.0
101	Air Niugini	7	673	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
102	Tunisair	4	638	0.0%	0.0%	30″	50.0
103	Thai Lion Air	3	624	0.0%	0.0%	29″	50.0
104	Pegasus Airlines	3	614	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
105	Batik Air	4	576	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
106	Aerolíneas Argentinas	3	572	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
107	Middle East Airlines	4	570	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
108	TUI fly Deutschland	3	564	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
109	Air Cairo	3	546	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
110	Air Arabia	3	516	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
111	Pakistan International Airlines	7	1,587	0.0%	0.1%	29″	50.0
112	Garuda Indonesia	9	2,051	5.7%	5.2%	30″	49.9
113	Air Mauritius	4	866	0.9%	1.4%	—	49.9
114	Iberia	7	1,690	0.4%	0.8%	30″	49.9
115	South African Airways	4	683	0.0%	0.9%	30″	49.8
116	SriLankan Airlines	9	1,736	2.0%	3.7%	31″	49.6
117	LOT Polish Airlines	8	1,222	0.0%	1.6%	—	49.6
118	Thai AirAsia	3	602	7.5%	8.8%	28″	49.5
119	IndiGo	5	1,028	6.4%	8.4%	—	49.5
120	Gulf Air	7	1,125	0.0%	2.0%	30″	49.5
121	Peach Aviation	3	586	3.1%	5.1%	30″	49.4
122	AirAsia	4	788	7.1%	9.1%	28″	49.3
123	Air India	7	1,574	1.5%	4.1%	24″	49.2
124	Malaysia Airlines	3	593	4.0%	7.8%	30″	49.1
125	Etihad Airways	6	1,616	1.5%	5.4%	30″	49.0
126	EVA Air	8	1,983	0.0%	5.0%	31″	48.8
127	Vietnam Airlines	9	2,013	1.5%	6.6%	31.9″	48.7
128	United Airlines	34	5,251	0.9%	5.9%	30″	48.7
129	Cathay Pacific	13	3,178	1.6%	7.3%	—	48.6
130	Philippine Airlines	6	1,216	1.0%	6.5%	29″	48.6
131	Singapore Airlines	7	1,765	3.5%	9.3%	30″	48.5
132	Asiana Airlines	8	2,159	1.3%	8.4%	31″	48.2
133	Eastar Jet	3	564	0.0%	7.8%	—	48.0
134	Qatar Airways	7	2,162	0.0%	8.0%	31″	48.0
135	Bangkok Airways	5	622	4.5%	13.2%	—	47.8
136	Bamboo Airways	3	532	1.1%	8.8%	28″	47.8
137	Thai Airways International	12	2,982	0.0%	8.6%	—	47.8
138	Emirates	9	3,133	0.0%	8.9%	—	47.8
139	Shenzhen Airlines	14	2,417	0.0%	9.2%	29.5″	47.7
140	Japan Airlines	15	2,663	0.0%	8.9%	—	47.6
141	STARLUX Airlines	4	959	0.0%	13.7%	30″	46.6
142	All Nippon Airways	18	3,816	0.0%	14.5%	—	46.2
143	China Airlines	10	2,282	0.0%	21.3%	28″	44.7

% gd/gr = share great or good · % ba/av = share be-aware or avoid · Min pitch = tightest published economy pitch (from the legroom league table, where published) · Score = the 0–100 composite. Per-airline economy seat counts sum to 221,566.

Appendix: below the coverage gate

80 airlines carry fewer than 500 rated economy seats in the corpus — too small a sample to score fairly, so they are not ranked. Their raw shares are shown here for reference, alphabetically, with no composite score.

Airline	Configs	Econ seats	% great/good	% be-aware/avoid
Air Algérie	1	132	0.0%	0.0%
Air Dolomiti	2	230	3.5%	1.7%
Air Inuit	7	490	0.0%	0.0%
Air North	4	494	0.0%	1.2%
Air Peace	1	112	0.0%	0.0%
Air Tahiti Nui	1	232	6.9%	6.0%
AirAsia X	1	365	7.4%	2.5%
airBaltic	1	148	0.0%	0.0%
Aircalin	2	400	3.0%	2.3%
AIRDO	2	432	6.0%	3.9%
Airlink	4	384	0.0%	0.0%
Alliance Airlines	3	280	0.0%	0.0%
Arajet	2	374	5.3%	0.0%
Avelo Airlines	2	338	26.6%	3.3%
BA CityFlyer	1	106	0.0%	0.0%
Biman Bangladesh Airlines	2	224	0.0%	0.0%
Binter Canarias	2	204	0.0%	0.0%
Breeze Airways	2	233	39.9%	2.1%
Caribbean Airlines	2	212	19.8%	4.7%
China Express Airlines	2	266	0.0%	0.0%
Citilink Indonesia	3	430	19.3%	1.2%
CommuteAir	1	50	12.0%	10.0%
Corendon Airlines	2	378	3.2%	0.5%
Corendon Airlines Europe	1	189	6.3%	1.1%
Croatia Airlines	4	496	0.0%	1.4%
Endeavor Air	3	182	30.8%	2.2%
Envoy Air	2	117	17.1%	2.6%
Firefly	2	261	3.4%	0.0%
Flair Airlines	2	378	0.0%	0.0%
flyadeal	2	372	19.4%	1.1%
FlyArystan	1	180	6.7%	7.8%
flynas	2	348	0.0%	0.0%
FlySafair	1	189	7.9%	0.0%
Fuji Dream Airlines	2	160	0.0%	7.5%
GoJet Airlines	1	40	40.0%	20.0%
Horizon Air	1	64	25.0%	3.1%
Jazeera Airways	2	348	17.2%	1.1%
Jazz Aviation	3	206	0.0%	1.5%
Jet2.com	2	421	0.0%	0.0%
Jetstar Japan	2	418	9.8%	0.0%
Kenya Airways	3	417	14.9%	0.0%
KM Malta Airlines	1	180	0.0%	0.0%
Korean Air	2	419	0.0%	7.2%
Kuwait Airways	2	358	0.0%	0.0%
Lion Air	2	404	0.0%	0.0%
Loganair	4	188	1.6%	0.0%
Lufthansa City Airlines	2	330	7.3%	7.3%
Mesa Airlines	2	122	13.1%	4.9%
Nok Air	1	189	0.0%	0.0%
Norse Atlantic Airways	1	282	6.4%	0.0%
Olympic Air	3	155	5.2%	2.6%
Pelita Air	2	330	0.0%	0.0%
Philippines AirAsia	2	366	6.0%	10.4%
Piedmont Airlines	1	50	6.0%	4.0%
Porter Airlines	2	210	20.0%	0.0%
PSA Airlines	2	120	23.3%	4.2%
Republic Airways	5	322	23.6%	2.5%
Rex Airlines	2	67	0.0%	0.0%
Royal Brunei Airlines	2	374	18.7%	5.9%
Royal Jordanian	2	246	0.0%	0.0%
Ryanair	2	386	23.3%	2.1%
SalamAir	2	388	0.0%	0.0%
Shandong Airlines	2	318	7.5%	0.0%
Sky Airline	2	424	12.7%	2.8%
Skymark Airlines	2	354	3.4%	8.5%
Solaseed Air	2	350	6.9%	6.3%
Southwest Airlines	3	487	0.0%	0.0%
SpiceJet	1	90	0.0%	0.0%
StarFlyer	3	462	0.0%	9.1%
Sun Country Airlines	2	372	7.3%	0.0%
SunExpress	2	378	0.0%	0.0%
Super Air Jet	1	180	0.0%	0.0%
Tigerair Taiwan	2	360	10.0%	0.0%
Transavia	2	421	0.0%	0.0%
Transavia France	1	186	0.0%	0.0%
TUI fly Belgium	2	378	0.0%	0.0%
TUI fly Netherlands	2	378	26.2%	1.1%
Widerøe	4	277	13.0%	0.0%
Wingo	1	186	22.6%	0.0%
ZIPAIR Tokyo	1	272	0.0%	11.8%

Methodology

Economy only. Seats are scored where the corpus tags the cabin’s canonical tier as economy or extra-legroom economy (exit rows and “more legroom” products). Premium economy, business and first are excluded.
Per-seat tiers. Each seat carries a position-based rating — great, good, standard, be-aware or avoid — derived from documented attributes, not from passenger surveys. The score weights those tiers +2/+1/0/−1/−2 and normalizes the mean to 0–100 (formula above).
Shares over composite. The composite orders the table; the great/good and be-aware/avoid shares are the citable figures.
Coverage gate. Only airlines with ≥ 500 rated economy seats are ranked (143 of 223); the remaining 80 are listed unranked so no airline is scored off a tiny sample.
Airline identity. Airlines are grouped by site-airline slug, so a carrier filed under two operator-name strings counts once. Here 223 site airlines span 228 operator-name strings (five slugs collapse a name variant).
Not an airline ranking. A low score reflects more seats with documented drawbacks — cabin-layout density choices — not overall airline quality.

Full method and the rating rubric on the methodology page.

Cite this data

Cite as SeatRecon and link this page. The full league table is free to reuse with credit and a link.

Download the CSV — one row per airline with shares, score and coverage flag (223 rows).
Press & citation guidance

Ratings and tier counts are shown exactly as recorded in the corpus. Generated 2026-10-06 from 1,192 configurations. Corrections: contact the editor.