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House passes bill to require minimum standards for airplane seat size, legroom
U.S. House lawmakers passed legislation late Wednesday [October 3] that would give federal regulators the authority to set minimum standards for seat size and leg room on flights.
Tucked inside a 2,000-page funding bill is a provision that gives the Federal Aviation Administration a year to establish minimum pitch, width and length on airplane seats to ensure they are safe for passengers. The legislation, which funds the FAA for the next five years, passed 398-23 in the House and now goes to the Senate.
The proposed law is designed to ensure that what have become increasingly cramped planes can be evacuated quickly in an emergency. Current FAA rules require airlines to evacuate in 90 seconds or less.
That policy hasn't been updated significantly in almost two decades. Investigators at the Department of Transportation, which oversees the FAA, said in June that they plan to study whether the FAA is ensuring that today's more crowded aircraft meet federal evacuation standards.
Commercial airplane cabins have become more cramped as airlines fit more seats on board to increase profits and spread out costs among more travelers. Several carriers have reconfigured their planes to not only include more seats but also smaller lavatories in some cases.
Seat pitch, a proxy for legroom, on commercial airplanes measured about 35 inches in the middle of the 20th century, but that's now around 31 inches, according to SeatGuru. Some budget airlines, like Spirit, offer 28 inches of seat pitch.
[...] The bill also requires a government study of whether airlines' shrinking or reducing bathrooms in favor of more seats on board creates problems for passengers accessing lavatories.
Before going to vote, lawmakers scrapped a provision that would determine whether airline fees, such as those to change a travel date, are reasonable.
WATCH: It's not just your eyes. Airline seats really are getting smaller.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @09:29AM (4 children)
This is in your best interest. Smaller seats means you can pack more passengers in each flight, which means fewer flights, which means less CO2 emissions, which means protecting you from global warming.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday October 11 2018, @09:44AM (3 children)
Alternatively: smaller seats mean lower prices, mean more people flying places they don't really need to go, mean more flights, mean more CO2, mean more global warming.
Seriously.
I'm not a fan of the global warming frenzy, but if we're serious about reducing CO2, the place to start is on long-haul transportation. One occasionally sees sterling examples of transport idiocy: Cattle shipped from Germany to Italy for slaughter, so that the meat can be shipped to Slovenia for processing, and then shipped back to Germany for sale.
Double or triple the price of fuel everywhere - planes, ships, trucks, cars - as an incentive to stop burning it for stupid reasons.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @09:54AM (2 children)
I think its something like 8 ships bringing cheap crap to the US from china produce as much pollution as all the cars in the world. Trumps tariffs may end up being the most environmentally friendly policy implemented yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @01:50PM (1 child)
Bullshit. Thanks. Bye.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @04:25PM
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html [dailymail.co.uk]