FlyersRights Pushes FAA to Stop Airplane Seats from Shrinking
Excerpts from The Washington Post
FlyersRights says the FAA has failed to carry out Congress’s direction to set minimum standards for the size of airplane seats as called for in the 2018 bill that reauthorized funding for the agency. It requests that the agency implement standards for seat sizes by July after “an appropriate public comment period.”
“Unfortunately, in the United States, the FAA has taken a very narrow view that it doesn’t really need to do anything,” said Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRights. “And it bases this view on a very narrow definition of their jurisdiction and what seat safety means. Under the FAA’s current policy, safety only affects emergency evacuation.”
Hudson said those dimensions would accommodate 90 to 92 percent of travelers, who according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are about 30 pounds heavier than in the 1960s, on average.
On many airlines, the width of seats ranges from 17 to 18.5 inches. The pitch is about 31 inches, though on some carriers it is 28 inches.
