The Airline Economy Score

Name: SeatRecon Per-Airline Economy Score
Creator: SeatRecon

We rated 235,170 seats. Here’s how every airline’s economy stacks up — 212,199 rated economy seats across 220 airlines, scored on SeatRecon’s own per-seat rating tiers. 142 airlines clear the 500-seat coverage gate and are ranked; the rest are listed, unranked, below.

212,199

economy seats scored

220

airlines

142

ranked (≥500 seats)

2.7%

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 212,199 rated economy seats break down as 132 great, 14,210 good, 192,040 standard, 5,594 be-aware and 223 avoid. (Corpus-wide, across every cabin, the totals are 1,981/21,601/204,001/7,362/225 — 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	Eurowings	56.0	24.2%	0.0%
3	Azul Linhas Aereas Brasileiras	55.7	23.9%	1.0%
4	Allegiant Air	55.2	20.7%	0.0%
5	EL AL Israel Airlines	55.0	25.0%	5.2%
6	United Airlines	54.9	26.7%	6.5%
7	Vueling	54.4	18.7%	1.0%
8	JetBlue Airways	54.2	24.2%	6.7%
9	KLM Royal Dutch Airlines	54.2	23.2%	6.4%
10	Copa Airlines	54.0	16.1%	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
142	Shenzhen Airlines	47.7	0.0%	9.2%
141	Bamboo Airways	47.8	1.1%	8.8%
140	Bangkok Airways	47.8	4.5%	13.2%
139	Eastar Jet	48.0	0.0%	7.8%
138	Air India	49.2	1.5%	4.1%
137	AirAsia	49.3	7.1%	9.1%
136	All Nippon Airways	49.3	7.9%	10.6%
135	Peach Aviation	49.4	3.1%	5.1%
134	Gulf Air	49.5	0.0%	2.0%
133	IndiGo	49.5	6.4%	8.4%

Economy score league table

All 142 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	Eurowings	7	1,240	24.2%	0.0%	—	56.0
3	Azul Linhas Aereas Brasileiras	4	788	23.9%	1.0%	30″	55.7
4	Allegiant Air	3	526	20.7%	0.0%	—	55.2
5	EL AL Israel Airlines	4	696	25.0%	5.2%	33″	55.0
6	United Airlines	21	3,843	26.7%	6.5%	30″	54.9
7	Vueling	4	772	18.7%	1.0%	28″	54.4
8	JetBlue Airways	7	1,053	24.2%	6.7%	32″	54.2
9	KLM Royal Dutch Airlines	9	1,669	23.2%	6.4%	29.1″	54.2
10	Copa Airlines	5	744	16.1%	0.0%	30″	54.0
11	ITA Airways	7	1,318	15.5%	0.0%	—	53.9
12	Hawaiian Airlines	3	699	21.7%	6.7%	30″	53.8
13	Delta Air Lines	25	4,136	19.7%	4.4%	30″	53.8
14	Edelweiss Air	4	950	16.5%	1.9%	29.1″	53.7
15	Spring Airlines	4	792	13.6%	0.9%	—	53.2
16	LATAM Airlines	5	1,372	14.1%	2.0%	29″	53.0
17	Volotea	4	624	11.5%	0.0%	—	52.9
18	Aeroméxico	6	996	11.2%	0.0%	—	52.8
19	Neos	3	699	11.2%	0.0%	31.9″	52.8
20	Akasa Air	3	560	11.1%	0.0%	—	52.8
21	Discover Airlines	3	649	10.6%	0.0%	29.9″	52.7
22	Aegean Airlines	3	574	10.5%	0.0%	—	52.6
23	Alaska Airlines	7	1,052	17.1%	9.2%	31″	52.5
24	American Airlines	14	2,290	15.4%	5.5%	30″	52.5
25	Swiss International Air Lines	9	1,617	15.3%	4.9%	29.1″	52.5
26	Air India Express	10	1,770	10.2%	0.0%	—	52.5
27	Virgin Atlantic	5	1,121	16.7%	7.7%	31″	52.3
28	Virgin Australia	4	642	15.9%	7.5%	34″	52.1
29	Air Astana	7	1,074	8.4%	0.0%	30.3″	52.1
30	Jin Air	3	771	11.9%	3.8%	29″	52.0
31	Air Transat	6	1,845	8.1%	0.0%	31″	52.0
32	TAROM	4	507	7.9%	0.0%	—	52.0
33	Jetstar Airways	7	1,611	7.5%	0.0%	28″	51.9
34	WestJet	11	1,947	14.8%	7.8%	28″	51.7
35	SKY express	5	842	6.7%	0.0%	—	51.7
36	Luxair	5	725	6.5%	0.0%	30″	51.6
37	Norwegian Air Shuttle	3	564	6.4%	0.0%	—	51.6
38	Etihad Airways	10	2,923	9.7%	3.6%	30″	51.5
39	Oman Air	5	973	6.2%	0.0%	30″	51.5
40	Condor	4	809	6.2%	0.0%	—	51.5
41	British Airways	13	2,329	12.1%	6.5%	29″	51.4
42	Scoot	7	1,679	11.4%	5.2%	28″	51.4
43	Air New Zealand	10	2,199	10.1%	4.5%	29″	51.4
44	Air France	9	2,235	7.9%	2.9%	30″	51.3
45	Aer Lingus	5	983	7.7%	2.6%	30″	51.3
46	STARLUX Airlines	4	959	6.7%	1.7%	30″	51.3
47	Air Busan	6	1,267	9.0%	3.9%	28″	51.2
48	JetSMART	3	612	7.7%	2.9%	—	51.2
49	Air Canada	7	1,665	8.5%	4.1%	30″	51.1
50	China Eastern Airlines	4	857	8.4%	4.1%	31″	51.1
51	Saudia	12	3,157	4.9%	0.4%	30″	51.1
52	Asiana Airlines	4	1,048	9.4%	5.2%	31″	51.0
53	XiamenAir	8	1,524	9.1%	5.2%	29″	51.0
54	Air China	5	1,335	8.3%	4.4%	31″	51.0
55	Fiji Airways	8	1,288	4.9%	0.9%	31″	51.0
56	Lufthansa	14	3,237	7.6%	4.4%	30″	50.8
57	Thai VietJet Air	3	599	6.0%	3.0%	—	50.8
58	Batik Air Malaysia	4	845	3.2%	0.0%	—	50.8
59	Bulgaria Air	5	657	3.0%	0.0%	—	50.8
60	Qatar Airways	9	2,904	6.1%	3.2%	31″	50.7
61	Austrian Airlines	6	1,185	4.6%	1.7%	28″	50.7
62	Korean Air	11	2,802	4.6%	2.6%	32″	50.5
63	Royal Air Maroc	9	1,718	3.7%	1.6%	31″	50.5
64	Air Serbia	5	750	2.9%	1.1%	—	50.5
65	Philippine Airlines	12	3,093	2.5%	0.3%	29″	50.5
66	easyJet	5	943	10.2%	5.8%	28″	50.4
67	Qantas	9	1,987	5.8%	4.2%	30″	50.4
68	VietJet Air	4	1,015	4.1%	2.4%	—	50.4
69	Emirates	7	2,673	3.6%	1.9%	32″	50.4
70	Hainan Airlines	11	2,311	1.6%	0.0%	31″	50.4
71	Wizz Air	4	835	6.5%	5.1%	28″	50.3
72	Finnair	5	1,024	11.9%	11.1%	29″	50.2
73	Thai Airways International	8	2,291	5.9%	4.6%	30″	50.2
74	Juneyao Air	4	806	4.2%	3.5%	29.9″	50.2
75	Malaysia Airlines	6	1,304	4.0%	2.8%	30″	50.2
76	China Southern Airlines	15	2,977	6.6%	6.1%	28″	50.1
77	TUI Airways	5	1,238	1.5%	1.0%	—	50.1
78	flydubai	4	630	7.6%	7.6%	29″	50.0
79	China Airlines	10	2,282	5.3%	5.2%	28″	50.0
80	Air Premia	4	1,117	3.0%	2.9%	31″	50.0
81	Turkish Airlines	15	3,521	0.0%	0.0%	30.7″	50.0
82	Ethiopian Airlines	14	3,479	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
83	Sichuan Airlines	16	3,344	0.0%	0.0%	32″	50.0
84	Uzbekistan Airways	11	2,084	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
85	Air Europa	7	1,794	0.0%	0.0%	30″	50.0
86	AJet	8	1,681	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
87	Volaris	8	1,638	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
88	Lucky Air	9	1,573	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
89	Iraqi Airways	6	1,276	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
90	Cebu Pacific	5	1,263	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
91	EgyptAir	7	1,258	0.0%	0.0%	31″	50.0
92	T'way Air	5	1,183	0.0%	0.0%	29″	50.0
93	Smartwings	6	1,087	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
94	Tianjin Airlines	7	1,074	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
95	Loong Air	6	1,010	0.0%	0.0%	30″	50.0
96	RwandAir	6	1,008	0.0%	0.0%	29″	50.0
97	TAP Air Portugal	5	972	0.0%	0.0%	31″	50.0
98	US-Bangla Airlines	5	959	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
99	SCAT Airlines	5	899	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
100	Icelandair	5	868	0.0%	0.0%	31″	50.0
101	Viva Aerobus	4	832	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
102	Chengdu Airlines	5	821	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
103	TAAG Angola Airlines	5	798	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
104	Boliviana de Aviación	5	749	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
105	Brussels Airlines	4	745	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
106	Avianca	4	739	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
107	Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL)	5	735	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
108	Scandinavian Airlines	4	709	0.0%	0.0%	31″	50.0
109	Jeju Air	4	702	0.0%	0.0%	29″	50.0
110	Air Niugini	7	673	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
111	Tunisair	4	638	0.0%	0.0%	30″	50.0
112	Thai Lion Air	3	624	0.0%	0.0%	29″	50.0
113	Pegasus Airlines	3	614	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
114	Batik Air	4	576	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
115	Aerolíneas Argentinas	3	572	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
116	Middle East Airlines	4	570	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
117	TUI fly Deutschland	3	564	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
118	Air Cairo	3	546	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
119	Air Arabia	3	516	0.0%	0.0%	—	50.0
120	Pakistan International Airlines	7	1,587	0.0%	0.1%	29″	50.0
121	Garuda Indonesia	9	2,051	5.7%	5.2%	30″	49.9
122	Vietnam Airlines	8	1,833	1.6%	2.1%	31.9″	49.9
123	Air Mauritius	4	866	0.9%	1.4%	—	49.9
124	Iberia	7	1,690	0.4%	0.8%	30″	49.9
125	Cathay Pacific	14	3,471	1.9%	2.9%	—	49.8
126	South African Airways	4	683	0.0%	0.9%	30″	49.8
127	Singapore Airlines	6	1,422	3.5%	4.9%	30″	49.7
128	EVA Air	8	1,983	2.9%	3.7%	31″	49.7
129	Japan Airlines	15	2,743	5.3%	6.7%	31″	49.6
130	SriLankan Airlines	9	1,736	2.0%	3.7%	31″	49.6
131	LOT Polish Airlines	8	1,222	0.0%	1.6%	—	49.6
132	Thai AirAsia	3	602	7.5%	8.8%	28″	49.5
133	IndiGo	5	1,028	6.4%	8.4%	28.3″	49.5
134	Gulf Air	7	1,125	0.0%	2.0%	30″	49.5
135	Peach Aviation	3	586	3.1%	5.1%	30″	49.4
136	All Nippon Airways	9	1,826	7.9%	10.6%	31″	49.3
137	AirAsia	4	788	7.1%	9.1%	28″	49.3
138	Air India	7	1,574	1.5%	4.1%	24″	49.2
139	Eastar Jet	3	564	0.0%	7.8%	—	48.0
140	Bangkok Airways	5	622	4.5%	13.2%	—	47.8
141	Bamboo Airways	3	532	1.1%	8.8%	28″	47.8
142	Shenzhen Airlines	14	2,417	0.0%	9.2%	29.5″	47.7

% 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 212,199.

Appendix: below the coverage gate

78 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 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%
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%
Frontier Airlines	2	429	14.0%	17.2%
Fuji Dream Airlines	2	160	0.0%	7.5%
GoJet Airlines	1	40	40.0%	20.0%
GOL Linhas Aéreas	2	372	19.4%	8.6%
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%
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	17.9%	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%	5.7%
Skymark Airlines	2	354	3.4%	8.5%
Solaseed Air	2	350	6.9%	6.3%
Southwest Airlines	3	487	27.1%	13.3%
SpiceJet	1	90	0.0%	0.0%
StarFlyer	3	462	0.0%	9.1%
Sun Country Airlines	1	186	14.5%	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	6.6%	3.7%

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 (142 of 220); the remaining 78 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 220 site airlines span 225 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 (220 rows).
Press & citation guidance

Ratings and tier counts are shown exactly as recorded in the corpus. Generated 2026-07-24 from 1,100 configurations. Corrections: contact the editor.