Regulator runs out of wiggle room
Address case of shrinking airline seats, U.S. court urges
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can no longer ignore what a federal judge called “the case of the incredible shrinking airline seat.”
Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday directed the FAA to “adequately address” a petition that raised safety concerns about the increasingly cramped conditions on airplanes.
The court found that the petition, filed in 2015 by Flyers Rights, a consumer advocacy group, had identified a genuine safety issue caused by the combination of shrinking seats and larger passengers. The petition said the reduced space could make it difficult for passengers to evacuate in emergencies.
The petition said the distance between seats from row to row had decreased to an average of about 79 centimetres from an average of about 89 centimetres and that the average seat width had narrowed by about 3.8 centimetres since the early 2000s.
The petition also noted the average American had grown significantly larger. Citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it said the average adult man was 191 pounds, a gain of 25 pounds from 1960 to 2002, and the average adult woman had gained 24 pounds, to 164 pounds, in that time.
Passengers in Canada have faced a similar contraction in the size of aircraft seats and the space between them in recent years, said Halifaxbased airline passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukacs.
He said that the width of some seats has shrunk by about 3.8 centimetres, while leg room has been reduced even more, arguing that on top of affecting customer comfort and health, the cramping poses a potential hazard in the case of an emergency evacuation.
Lukacs on Monday also said broader human rights issues are at stake, especially in cases where airlines single out passengers based solely on their physical characteristics.
In a complaint originally filed to the Canadian Transportation Agency in 2014, Lukacs took issue with Delta Air Line’s practice of bumping obese travellers from flights or making them relocate or buy two seats on a plane.
The quasi-judicial tribunal dismissed the complaint, finding that Lukacs had no private or public standing in the matter since he was not directly affected and was not himself obese.
The Federal Court of Appeal unanimously disagreed with what Lukacs called the “nonsensical” decision, finding that a slim advocate could stand up for obese people — and ordered the agency to take another look at Delta’s policy.
The Supreme Court in February granted Delta leave to appeal, with a hearing possible before the end of the year.
The decision was welcomed by the airline which said in a statement that it was pleased the top court will “decide this issue.”
Aspokesperson for Transport Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The U.S. ruling, meanwhile, comes as the airline industry continues to be buffeted by concerns about its treatment of customers. Recent episodes include the violent removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight and an acidic exchange on Twitter between the conservative commentator Ann Coulter and Delta Air Lines after Coulter was made to give up her pre-selected seat.
Judge Patricia A. Millett wrote that the FAA had denied the petition based on a “vaporous record” of “offpoint studies and undisclosed tests using unknown parameters.” She said the agency cited tests that either did not appropriately address seating space or were omitted from the record entirely because the FAA said they were proprietary.
Flyers Rights called the ruling a victory for airline passengers. The FAA said in a statement that it was “studying the ruling carefully and any potential actions we may take to address the court’s findings.”
Arthur Alan Wolk, a lawyer who specializes in aviation law, called the court’s ruling “groundbreaking.”
“This is the first case I have seen where an organization has successfully challenged the FAA’s basically being asleep at the switch and not fulfilling its safety responsibilities adequately,” he said.
The ruling does not necessarily compel the agency to set new standards for seating.
Wolk acknowledged that the FAA might deny the petition again after further review, something that the court asked it to do only if it had “appropriate record support for its decision.”
Still, he said, the judges had called the FAA’s bluff as it tried to defend itself with data that it would not disclose to the court.
“The court pointed out that it would be impossible for it to make a decision in favour of an agency that decided to withhold the very information upon which it claims to have made its judgments,” he said. With files from Star staff