Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the make-seat-backs-thinner dept.

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @10:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @10:15AM (#747370)

    That page is bs. I switched to spiked seltzers from beer which have about the same calories but much fewer carbs. The carbs in beer make you hungry, so you eat more while drinking or the next day.