U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today said that the upcoming Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) Reauthorization bill in Congress must include language requiring the FAA to set minimum seat size standards for airplanes.
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In fact, the amount of leg and seat room we have on flights has progressively been cut over the past few decades in order for airlines to cram more seats onto planes.
Schumer said passengers are forced to sit on planes “like sardines”. “It’s time for the FAA to step up and stop this deep-seated problem from continuing”.
As per The Guardian, Schumer will be amending the pending FAA Reauthorization Bill that would require the agency to set the guidelines for the commercial seat size.
Currently, there are no federal limits on how close together an airline’s row of seats can be or how wide the seat must be. Charles Schumer – who on Sunday demanded space between seats be increased on commercial flights.
Congress must pass legislation authorizing the FAA, and the clock is ticking. “The average passenger feels they are being treated like sardines”.
Meanwhile, as seat sizes have shrunk, passengers themselves have only been getting bigger.
Schumer argued statistics from a report published by Fortune stating that the average distance between rows of seats has dropped from 35 inches prior to airline deregulation in the 1970’s, to about 31 inches.
Only earlier this month, United Airlines was reportedly considering plans to squeeze nearly 100 more seats onto Boeing 777s adding one extra seat per row in economy – meaning coach passengers would have even less space than before. He also said that seat width has narrowed down from about 18.5 inches to about 16.5 inches.
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Former Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy wrote on Twitter, “Let’s give a shout-out to Senator Schumer – on his call to the airlines for more leg room on commercial carriers”. “It’s just plain unfair that a person gets charged for extra inches that were once standard”, Schumer told Associated Press via Yahoo.
