Rejoice! You will soon have 0.7 more inches of seat room on Southwest Airlines' jets

Southwest AirlinesSouthwest Airlines' new seats.

Passengers flying on Southwest Airlines will have something extra to, um ... cheer about?

Their seats will have 0.7 inches of extra room.

Yes, you read that right.

The Dallas-based low-cost airline announced this week that it's launching a new seat design with partner firm B/E Aerospace.

The new seats will be installed in its new Boeing 737-800 and 737Max jets starting in mid-2016.

The new seats will increase seat width from 17.1 to 17.8 inches - making them the widest seats on any Boeing 737 aircraft in the US, Bloomberg reported.

According to SeatGuru, this will mark a significant upgrade from the 17.0 inches offered on Alaska Airlines, the 17.3 inches offered on United or the 17.2 inches offered on Delta and American's 737s. 

Unfortunately, seat pitch or the amount of space between rows will remain unchanged at 32 inches. In addition to more width, the seats will offer greater underseat storage, improved seat cushions, and an adjustable headrest.

"The new aircraft seats are the widest economy seats available in the single-aisle 737 market, and offer a unique design that gives our customers what they asked for - more space," Southwest's executive vice president and chief commercial officer Bob Jordan said in statement. 

Southwest is the world's largest operator of Boeing 737 airliners, with more than 650 jets in its fleet. The airline is in the midst of a upgrading its 737-only lineup with new 737-800s arriving mid-2016, with next generation 737Max jets set to enter service in 2017.

Have a closer look at the new Southwest Airlines seats here:

Update: We actually got the dimensions of the change slightly wrong on our first go-round. 7 inches is obviously a lot more than 0.7!

NOW WATCH: We Did The Math: What Airline Is The Cheapest?

Please enable Javascript to watch this video