Porter Airlines Introduces Lighter, Tighter Seats – One Mile at a Time

Featured Reviews
Featured Insights
Porter Airlines is a quirky regional Canadian airline based at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. The airline has been grounded since the start of the pandemic, given the border restrictions between Canada and the United States. Porter Airlines will be resuming flights as of September 8, 2021, and ahead of that, the carrier is revealing some changes to aircraft cabins.
In this post:
Porter Airlines has updated the interiors of its fleet of 29 Bombardier Q400 aircraft. The most significant change is that these planes now feature the new TiSeat E2 from Expliseat, marketed as being the world’s lightest aircraft seat. With this, the airline has also added an additional row of seats to each plane:
In addition to these thin seats allowing Porter to squeeze in more seats, the airline also highlights that they’re roughly 50% lighter than previous seats, and reduce aircraft weight by about 1,000 pounds. The airline expects this will reduce annual fuel consumption by around 500,000 liters, and corresponding CO2 emissions by around 1,200 metric tons.
In addition to the new seats, Porter Airlines has also added new carpeting, lavatory enhancements, and new sideboards and updated LED lighting.
Porter Airlines has historically differentiated itself from other airlines, both by the airport it operates out of, and by the product it offers. The airline has primarily targeted business travelers, and a great product has been part of the selling point — the airline has a lounge for everyone at the airport, there are free alcoholic drinks onboard served in glassware, and more.
With that in mind, a few thoughts on these Porter Airlines changes:
I feel like Porter Airlines is going to have a rough time as we emerge from the pandemic, given that transborder business travel likely won’t recover for a long time. I certainly can’t blame the airline for these changes, and I don’t think the new configuration will materially alter peoples’ purchase decisions.
Porter Airlines’ fleet has been grounded for about 18 months, and during this time the airline has reconfigured its Q400s. The airline has installed the world’s lightest airplane seats on these planes, and in the process has managed to increase the number of seats on planes by four, to 78.
While the environmental aspect of this is cool, I can’t imagine flying in the world’s lightest airplane seat will be much of a passenger experience upgrade.
What do you make of these changes to Porter Airlines’ Q400 interiors?
The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser’s responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

I think the “1000 pound seat savings” thing is silly, since that could easily be cancelled out by the passengers sitting in the 4 additional seats and their bags.
Just what I was thinking!
Living in Toronto and walking along the waterfront Porter have been ‘shunting ‘ their fleet around the airport
Originally Porter’s Q400s had 70 seats. It was like an all-Economy Plus plane, which was great. Later they increased to 74 (per Wikipedia, this occurred in 2013). It is unfortunate that they have further increased density, although the seats were due for replacement – on some of the older planes they didn’t look great.
A correction: They no longer have “a lounge for everyone at the airport”. YTZ expanded a couple years ago and put…
Originally Porter’s Q400s had 70 seats. It was like an all-Economy Plus plane, which was great. Later they increased to 74 (per Wikipedia, this occurred in 2013). It is unfortunate that they have further increased density, although the seats were due for replacement – on some of the older planes they didn’t look great.
A correction: They no longer have “a lounge for everyone at the airport”. YTZ expanded a couple years ago and put in real food and beverage concessions, which eliminated the free drinks and snacks that had been a Porter hallmark. They also closed their lounge at YOW and the space became a Priority Pass affiliated lounge (closed at the moment due to Covid). Similarly the makeshift lounge area beside their gate at EWR no longer exists.
Lucky,
Porter doesn’t have lounges anymore, hence no more free food/drinks at airports.
They also got rid of free alcoholic drinks onboard.
All these changes occurred before COVID, so they are not pandemic related.
You should update your post with these changes, as they are a big deal.
@Ben – something is wrong with the ”blog” page at OMAAT and have been for at least a week now. For me, it leaves out a lot of recent posts and the time stamp is incorrect. Eg it currently says that the most recent article was about Qatar airways Executive jets ”32 minutes ago”, even though that post was posted several days ago. These newer articles don’t show up at all. You really need to…
@Ben – something is wrong with the ”blog” page at OMAAT and have been for at least a week now. For me, it leaves out a lot of recent posts and the time stamp is incorrect. Eg it currently says that the most recent article was about Qatar airways Executive jets ”32 minutes ago”, even though that post was posted several days ago. These newer articles don’t show up at all. You really need to fix it, since the blog section is probably the most popular section for us ULTRA frequent readers (10+ daily visits 365 days a year for many, many years). Please!! 🙂
May be your browser cache. Add ? and a word to the end of the url, like https://onemileatatime.com/blog/?go and it’ll force load fresh.
No, this is a recent development. I’m having the same problem with my browser where I have to manually refresh the screen to see any new articles added since the last time I visited the page. This only started happening within the last week or so.
My apologies to everyone reporting issues with the /blog page, I’ll look into it. The good news is that there should be a significant improvement going live very, very shortly, which will make the /blog page unnecessary. Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.
I have the same issues with the blog page and have to manually reload it in my browser to get the latest articles. I have been seeing them come through on the social media platforms before.
Me, too.
The planes were already tight as it was. 30″ is ridiculous. I don’t think a lot of their routes have much competition, though. I didn’t have many options to get to places like Sudbury. Guess I’ll just fold myself up like a transformer. Didn’t want those knees anyways
Your feedback is important in helping us keep our community safe.
The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser’s responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.
My apologies to everyone reporting issues with the /blog page, I'll look into it. The good news is that there should be a significant improvement going live very, very shortly, which will make the /blog page unnecessary. Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.
I have the same issues with the blog page and have to manually reload it in my browser to get the latest articles. I have been seeing them come through on the social media platforms before.
@Ben – something is wrong with the ”blog” page at OMAAT and have been for at least a week now. For me, it leaves out a lot of recent posts and the time stamp is incorrect. Eg it currently says that the most recent article was about Qatar airways Executive jets ”32 minutes ago”, even though that post was posted several days ago. These newer articles don’t show up at all. You really need to fix it, since the blog section is probably the most popular section for us ULTRA frequent readers (10+ daily visits 365 days a year for many, many years). Please!! 🙂
The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser’s responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

I think the “1000 pound seat savings” thing is silly, since that could easily be cancelled out by the passengers sitting in the 4 additional seats and their bags.
Just what I was thinking!
Living in Toronto and walking along the waterfront Porter have been ‘shunting ‘ their fleet around the airport
Originally Porter’s Q400s had 70 seats. It was like an all-Economy Plus plane, which was great. Later they increased to 74 (per Wikipedia, this occurred in 2013). It is unfortunate that they have further increased density, although the seats were due for replacement – on some of the older planes they didn’t look great.
A correction: They no longer have “a lounge for everyone at the airport”. YTZ expanded a couple years ago and put…
Originally Porter’s Q400s had 70 seats. It was like an all-Economy Plus plane, which was great. Later they increased to 74 (per Wikipedia, this occurred in 2013). It is unfortunate that they have further increased density, although the seats were due for replacement – on some of the older planes they didn’t look great.
A correction: They no longer have “a lounge for everyone at the airport”. YTZ expanded a couple years ago and put in real food and beverage concessions, which eliminated the free drinks and snacks that had been a Porter hallmark. They also closed their lounge at YOW and the space became a Priority Pass affiliated lounge (closed at the moment due to Covid). Similarly the makeshift lounge area beside their gate at EWR no longer exists.
Lucky,
Porter doesn’t have lounges anymore, hence no more free food/drinks at airports.
They also got rid of free alcoholic drinks onboard.
All these changes occurred before COVID, so they are not pandemic related.
You should update your post with these changes, as they are a big deal.
@Ben – something is wrong with the ”blog” page at OMAAT and have been for at least a week now. For me, it leaves out a lot of recent posts and the time stamp is incorrect. Eg it currently says that the most recent article was about Qatar airways Executive jets ”32 minutes ago”, even though that post was posted several days ago. These newer articles don’t show up at all. You really need to…
@Ben – something is wrong with the ”blog” page at OMAAT and have been for at least a week now. For me, it leaves out a lot of recent posts and the time stamp is incorrect. Eg it currently says that the most recent article was about Qatar airways Executive jets ”32 minutes ago”, even though that post was posted several days ago. These newer articles don’t show up at all. You really need to fix it, since the blog section is probably the most popular section for us ULTRA frequent readers (10+ daily visits 365 days a year for many, many years). Please!! 🙂
May be your browser cache. Add ? and a word to the end of the url, like https://onemileatatime.com/blog/?go and it’ll force load fresh.
No, this is a recent development. I’m having the same problem with my browser where I have to manually refresh the screen to see any new articles added since the last time I visited the page. This only started happening within the last week or so.
My apologies to everyone reporting issues with the /blog page, I’ll look into it. The good news is that there should be a significant improvement going live very, very shortly, which will make the /blog page unnecessary. Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.
I have the same issues with the blog page and have to manually reload it in my browser to get the latest articles. I have been seeing them come through on the social media platforms before.
Me, too.
The planes were already tight as it was. 30″ is ridiculous. I don’t think a lot of their routes have much competition, though. I didn’t have many options to get to places like Sudbury. Guess I’ll just fold myself up like a transformer. Didn’t want those knees anyways

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.
Stay connected with the latest travel, aviation, and credit card news.
Advertiser Disclosure: Some links to credit cards and other products on this website will earn an affiliate commission. Outside of banner ads published through the Boarding Area network, this compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site. While we do try to list all the best miles and points deals, the site does not include all card companies or credit card offers available in the marketplace. Please view our advertising policy page for additional details about our partners.
Editorial Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any entity mentioned herein. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. See more about our ethics policies here.
© 2021 – OMAAT | All rights reserved

source