The narrower 17-inch-wide seat favoured by Boeing is a legacy from the 1950s when passenger jets were first introduced. In the 1970s and 1980s with the introduction of the Boeing 747 and the first Airbus jets, 18 inches become standard for long-haul flights.

In the "Golden Age" of the 1950s, airplane seats were significantly larger and more high-value than the standard economy seats found in 2026. On the premier propeller planes of the early 50s and the first Boeing 707 jets in 1958, seats were typically 19 to 20 inches wide, compared to the 17-inch "standard" today. The most dramatic difference was the "seat pitch" (the space between seats), which was a luxurious 34 to 36 inches, roughly equivalent to "Economy Plus" or "Domestic First Class" today. In the 1950s, there was usually only one class of service, meaning every passenger enjoyed what we would now consider a premier, "long-legroom" experience. While these seats didn't have the high-tech entertainment or ergonomic materials of 2026, they offered a high-quality sense of space and dignity that has been gradually engineered out of modern aviation as airlines moved toward high-density configurations to lower ticket prices for the mass market.