Airlines don’t have to worry about complying with federal seat size requirements on their aircraft — for now at least.
In a letter this month, the Federal Aviation Administration said it will not establish strict rules controlling the size of seats on planes, responding to a petition from a nonprofit organization that argued cramped quarters could increase hazards during plane evacuations.
The nonprofit, FlyersRights.org, claimed in the petition that seat width has decreased from an average of 18.5 inches to 17 inches and the space between rows shrunk from approximately 35 inches to 31 inches.
“The shrinkage of seats and passenger space by airlines to generate higher profits while the size of passengers has substantially increased has created an intolerable crisis situation,” FlyersRights.org said in the petition, which was filed in 2015. “It is threatening the health, safety and comfort of all passengers. The FAA needs to rectify this situation of unreasonably small seats by imposing a moratorium on the reduction of seat sizes and promulgating minimum seat and passenger space standards.”
But the FAA contended “that seat width and pitch, even in combination with increasing passenger size, do not hamper the speed of an evacuation.”
“The FAA also has no evidence that current seat sizes are a factor in evacuation speed, nor that current seat sizes create a safety issue necessitating rule-making, because the time to stand up from one’s seat is less than the time it will take for the exit door to be opened and, for most passengers, for the aisle to clear,” wrote, Dorenda Baker, executive director for aviation security at the FAA.
Aircraft must be evacuated within 90 seconds during emergencies, according to FAA rules, and evacuation simulations are performed and often filmed by aircraft manufacturers. The FAA makes some of the videos available to the public, and claimed that recent simulations show it only takes “no more than a second or two” for passengers to get out of seats.
However, FlyersRights.org brushed off the FAA’s assessment and charged in a recent blog post that the tests don’t include children and those who are elderly or obese.
The dispute is playing out as FAA reuthorization is being considered in Congress. The House version of the FAA reauthorization bill, which was passed in April, includes a provision mandating the agency create minimum standards for seat dimensions. Meanwhile, the Senate’s version of the bill currently in the works has a provision to require the FAA to “review the minimum seat pitch for airline passengers’ seats, taking the safety of passengers into consideration.”
But some Democratic senators are fighting to force the FAA to set regulations on seat dimensions, pushing legislation they introduced last year called the Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights.
In a joint statement issued this month, Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut accused the FAA of having a lapse of judgment on passenger safety and urged Congress to pass their legislation “immediately.”
“The FAA has an obligation to protect the safety and wellbeing of passengers, and it simply defies logic to suggest that wedging larger and larger people into smaller and smaller seats is in the public interest,” Markey and Blumenthal wrote in a joint statement. “The incredible shrinking airline seat is more than an inconvenience, it can pose a serious threat to the health and safety of passengers.”
Their bill had been referred to the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, but no action was ever taken on it.
The offices of Markey and Blumenthal did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Examiner on whether they would attempt to include a provision in the Senate’s FAA reauthorization bill to regulate seat dimensions, similar to what their legislation demands. The reauthorization bill is now awaiting approval from the Senate before the FAA’s legal authority expires in September.
FlyersRights.org isn’t ready to drop the fight over seat regulations as it is encouraging passengers to contact members of Congress, acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell, Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, and President Trump in an attempt to alter the FAA’s decision. They also are requesting that passengers send videos of their experiences or submit them to the petition docket.
“Now that the FAA bureaucracy has again rejected any regulation of seat size and passenger space while ridiculing passenger discomfort and dismissing all safety and health concerns, the only likely recourse is an overwhelming public opposition,” Hudson said in a statement, according to a blog post on FlyersRights.org.
Andrew Appelbaum, a staff attorney for FlyersRights.org, told the Washington Examiner that the group will submit a formal response to the FAA by the end of the month. After that, they will evaluate whether to pursue litigation or not.
Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, said if the Senate keeps its provision to review seat dimensions, he believes it will prevail over the House’s call for regulations in the final bill.
But, in the event that the final FAA reauthorization bill did require the FAA to impose seat size regulations, Poole noted that we cannot be sure how the White House would respond given that Trump has pushed for deregulation.
“I don’t know if that would be a big enough thing for the President to issue a warning of veto if it stays in, or to actually veto it if it did stay in,” Poole said. “That’s a small piece of a pretty complicated bill, but it’s conceivable given … the administration’s deregulatory endeavor. The idea of signing a bill which had an important new regulation might stick out and [they might] say ‘wait a minute, we shouldn’t go along with that.’”
