(MONEY Magazine) – Who says flying a discount airline means no frills? Low-fare carriers are showing up their major airline rivals by ripping out seats to give cramped coach fliers more legroom. JetBlue is leading the charge by giving passengers three more inches between seat rows than the industry standard of 31, and other discounters are following suit. Meanwhile, American Airlines is rolling back its popular three-year-old "More Room Throughout Coach" seating on 25% of its fleet, a move American says is needed to offset lower fares it's offering to leisure travelers. By mid-November, 34 American Airbus jets will be back at 31 inches; 120 of its Boeing 757s will lose their extra legroom by mid-February.

So where can you find the roomiest seats when you fly coach? JetBlue, which completes its seat reconfiguration in mid-November, is the most generous of the discounters, giving fliers 34 inches of legroom--two inches more than before--in all but the first nine rows of each cabin (which will stay at 32). ATA Airlines revamped 15 jets in October; fliers now get 32 to 33 inches on all flights, up from 30. Frontier, in the process of changing to an all-Airbus fleet by 2005, will give fliers 33 inches on every flight. Delta is even showing itself up: Its eight-month-old discount carrier Song gives fliers 33 inches vs. 31 on mainline flights.

--DONNA ROSATO