More seats mean lower airfares

“Safety Always” is a term heard often in the airline industry, as every customer and employee understands that an unsafe airline is not a real choice.

It is true that airlines have added more seats to their airplanes. This has resulted in lower fares with no compromise to safety. Seat manufacturers have invested to bring new materials and technology to airline seats, helping to create reasonable customer space even as airlines add more seats.

For every aircraft it certifies, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) determines the maximum number of seats safely allowed. Airlines must demonstrate that they can safely evacuate customers under whatever seat configuration they choose.

Recently, a federal appeals court criticized the FAA for failing to ensure that planes with smaller seats could be safely evacuated. The court was wrong, as the FAA does ensure safety for the maximum allowable seats on any aircraft.

In the U.S., only a small fraction of aircraft — those flown by Spirit, Frontier and Alle- giant — even try to reach the FAA “maximum seat” count, and they must regularly prove that they can evacuate their airplanes to the FAA’s standard.

Regulating seat pitch, or even mandating that airlines disclose it in advance, would actually take away a marketing benefit even from airlines that invest in and advertise more legroom. (And many of them do!)

Efforts to reduce the seat count below the level determined by the FAA would simply raise fares for all, as the airlines would need to cover their costs with fewer total passengers per flight.

The FAA takes its safety mandate seriously. The agency defines rules and audits performance in areas as wide-ranging as aircraft maintenance and pilot training. It certainly understands cabin safety related to seating.

Customers are smart — they can and will choose what’s best for them if given options. It is better to let them choose, rather than ask the nanny state to protect them from something already proven safe.

B. Ben Baldanza, former CEO of Spirit Airlines, is an adjunct professor of economics at George Mason University.