Passenger Comfort Takes a Backseat to Airline Profits-D.C. Lawmakers Urge FAA to Assess Size of Seats on Commercial Planes  

DC – Two Democratic senators in Washington, D.C., are proposing legislation for the Federal Aviation Administration to assess airplane seat sizes to determine if they are too cramped. 

Senators Tammy Duckworth and Tammy Baldwin are pushing for the FAA to conduct new airplane cabin evacuation tests with more realistic conditions and issue standards that take into account seat size and row layout, as well as the presence of carry-on items, like purses and briefcases. The standards must consider a range of passengers, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities. The FAA claims to be considering numerous pieces of feedback they’ve gotten regarding insufficient space and how it affects passengers. 

The FAA issued rules, as mandated by the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018the FAA issued rules, for passenger safety concerning the minimum dimensions of passenger seats on airplanes operated by air carriers in interstate air transportation. These dimensions include seat pitch, width, and length, with zero regards for comfort. 

The FAA has gotten tens of thousands of critiques related to the airplane seats’ size and safety, such as their effects on emergency exits. 

After analyzing nearly 300 real-world evacuation events from the past decade, along with the demographics of the flying public, an aviation safety panel determined that overall safety emergency evacuations are successful. 

Senator Duckworth’s campaign for improved seating is motivated by the need to ensure travelers can evacuate an aircraft in the event of an emergency without harm. In 2019, the FAA ran tests with healthy adults under the age of 60. While the results have been useful, the statistics do not provide any conclusive data.  

Duckworth contended that the 2019 FAA test was inadequate since it did not include children, the elderly, or individuals with disabilities. As a result, the FAA conducted tests. 

Congress’s growing demand for the establishment of minimums for airline seat size and row spacing due to the increasing weight of Americans and the overcrowding of planes was ignored by the FAA. 

The FAA maintained that seat size and spacing between rows are matters of comfort, not safety, and a federal appeals court upheld this stance in its ruling this year. 

Airlines have made seats narrower and decreased the amount of legroom to fit more people on each flight. The space between a seatback and the one in front or behind it, often referred to as “pitch” by airlines, used to be roughly 35 inches. But now it is 28 inches on some airlines and 31 or 32 inches on others. Ouch!