A case of the incredible shrinking airline seat
The Federal Aviation Administration 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 ruling comes as the airlineindustry continues to be buffeted by concerns about its treatment of customers, exacerbated by high-profile flight-related complaints.
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 Ms. Coulter was made to give up herpreselected seat.
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 31 inches from an average of 35 inches and that the average seat width had narrowed by about an inch and a half 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.
Judge Patricia 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.
She added, “The Administration’s rationale also blinks reality. As a matter of basic physics, at some point seat and passenger dimensions would become so squeezed as to impede the ability of passengers to extricate themselves from their seats and get over to an aisle.”
“The question is not whether seat dimensions matter, but when,” the judge wrote.
So the FAA was ordered by Judge Millett and two other judges on the court to go back and take another look. They didn’t specify a deadline.
A spokesman for the agency said in a statement that it already considered seat spacing in its evacuation rules, but was “studying the ruling carefully and any potential actions we may take to address the Court’s findings.”
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.”
The ruling does not necessarily compel the agency to set new standards for seating. Arthur Alan Wolk, a lawyer who specializes in aviation law, acknowledged that the FAA might deny the petition again after further review.