Originally Posted by
EI-BUD
When Easyjet phased out the 737 from the fleet, the main feedback from the crew was that the 319 was so much more spacious than the 737 in the aisles.
The A320 series are 6" wider across cabin interior than the 737/757, whose basic structure goes back to the 707 fuselage of the late 1950s. That extra 6" can be handled a number of ways, some operators put in seats that are each 1" wider, to give the passengers the benefit during the flight, while others put in the same seats but gain a 6" wider aisle, as seems the case here.
The time taken to board and disembark does go up the longer the fuselage and passenger capacity is, such as the longer 737-800, in fact for all sorts of subsidiary reasons it almost seems to go up by the square of the fuselage length, hence why those airlines with the 757-300 found that because of its extended boarding times etc it was really a stretch too far. The 737-900 seems to have had the same reception from operators, whereas the wider A321 does not seem to have suffered from this to the same extent.
For Ryanair, where sharp turnround is more important than passenger comfort in their management perspective, I am surprised this did not come more to the fore when they evaluated the A320 against the 737-800; possibly the additional price required was just too much.