A House Democrat says the federal government needs to step in to ensure that airlines don’t make airplane seats too narrow for Americans who are getting heavier and heavier each year.
Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., has introduced the Seat Egress in Air Travel Act, or the SEAT Act. His bill would direct the Federal Aviation Administration to establish a minimum size.
Cohen said in floor remarks Monday that the problem is seat sizes have gotten smaller as Americans have gotten bigger. He said the average width of a seat has gone from 18 inches in the 1970s to 16.5 inches today.
“[A]verage seat sizes have been shrinking while the average size of Americans has been growing,” he said. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average man in 1960 weighed 166 [pounds], and the average woman weighed 140 pounds. Now the average man is 196 pounds and the average woman is 166 pounds, and both are about an inch taller.”
But he said it’s not just about fitting in your seat, and is also about making sure people are safe. He said the distance between seat rows has fallen from 35 to 31 inches, and said that’s making it harder to evacuate airplanes.
“The FAA requires that planes be capable of evacuation in 90 seconds or less, but the FAA hasn’t conducted emergency evacuation tests on airlines with a distance between rows of less than 29 inches,” he said. “Some airlines fly with rows as close as 28 inches apart.”
“Furthermore, doctors warn of deep vein thrombosis which can afflict passengers who don’t move their legs enough on longer flights,” he said.
