Many airlines remove specific rows from their aircraft, and the reason is often linked to old superstitions.
Rows including four, seven, 13, and 21 are intentionally excluded on certain airplanes due to cultural associations with these numbers.
Notably, airlines like Ryanair, Air France, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, Emirates, KLM, Iberia, and Lufthansa all avoid including row 13 on some of their planes, as reported by Euronews.
his practice is rooted in triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13. The cultural apprehension surrounding this number can be traced back to the 1700s when the superstition of '13 at a table' was first recorded. According to this superstition, if 13 individuals sit at a table, one of them will perish within the year. However, the origin of this belief remains unclear.
Nonetheless, the fear or suspicion associated with the number 13 persists to this day, prompting airlines to exclude it from their seating arrangements to ensure passengers feel comfortable during their flight.
Additionally, Lufthansa does not remove row 14 but only row 17 on their planes
For some people, the number 17 is also unlucky. When represented in Roman numerals as XVII, it forms an anagram VIXI, which means "my life is over" in Latin.
According to its website, the airline explained: "In some cultures, the number 13 is considered unlucky.
"That is why there is no row 13 in planes because we respect the superstition. That way nobody who thinks that the number 13 is unlucky has to sit in that row.
"In some countries, for example, Italy and Brazil, the typical unlucky number is 17 and not 13."
Chinese airlines also refrain from having a row number four on their planes due to linguistic associations. In Chinese, the word for the number four sounds similar to the word for death, although it is pronounced with a different tone. Consequently, buildings in China frequently skip from the third floor to the fifth, without designating a fourth floor.
Additionally, some Chinese airlines avoid using row number 14 for similar reasons. In Mandarin, the word for fourteen bears resemblance to a phrase that can be interpreted as "is dead."
The aversion to the number 13 isn't limited to airlines, as some hotels and cruise liners also omit having a deck or floor 13 either.
