WAITING TO INHALE: American Airlines Will Shrink Legroom in Coach — Again.

An American spokesman said Tuesday that the carrier’s Boeing 737 Max jets, the first of which should arrive later this year, will have only 30 inches of seat pitch in most coach seats, giving passengers an inch less space than in the airline’s older model 737s.

Worse, “up to three rows” will have 29-inch pitch, roughly equivalent to what ultra low-cost carriers, including Frontier Airlines, give passengers. Except for the discounters — they generally have 28 or 29 inches of pitch — U.S. airlines have been reluctant to shrink standard pitch below 30 inches. (Pitch is the distance from any spot on a seat to the same place on the seat in front of it.)

American did not say how it will decide which passengers sit in the rows with the least legroom. But the spokesman said passengers will hardly notice having less room.

Uh-huh.

Smaller seats also mean smaller tray tables — and some are already too small to hold a cocktail and a 10-inch tablet at the same time.