Politics is like professional wresting. What you see is rarely real. Take, for instance, six Democratic Senators urging the FAA to bar airlines from further reducing legroom and seat width.
Six Democratic U.S senators urged the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday to bar airlines from further shrinking the size and leg room of airplane seats.
The senators including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Richard Blumenthal, Edward Markey and Ron Wyden
These Senators aren’t calling for more passenger space. They are calling for passengers to not have less space. In other words, they demand the status quo! And, in fact, they’re calling for the status quo only until the FAA issues a rule.
The FAA is considering whether to make offering less legroom than Spirit and Frontier offer illegal. And by the way, if the government allows JetBlue to buy Spirit then Spirit planes will get more legroom.
At issue – for safety and not comfort reasons – is whether to allow an airline to cram more seats into planes than Frontier does. But there’s zero indication that Frontier plans to reduce pitch further.
- Generally Frontier offers 28 inches of pitch (distance from seat back to seat back)
- United, American and Delta offer 30, while Southwest offers 31-33 inches
Seat width has also been raised as an issue, but that’s largely a function of the fuselage of the aircraft. Requiring wider seats basically means banning the Boeing 737, which is not on the table.
If the government were to say ‘all passengers must have at least 28 inches of pitch’ then literally nothing changes in the industry. If it were to say 29 or 30 inches is required, then that means Frontier can’t put in quite as many seats and needs to charge slightly higher prices. That benefits United, American and Delta who will face less price competition while not changing anything at all on its planes.
Meanwhile nearly all of the coverage of the issue has centered around passenger comfort. I do not wish to fly Frontier, though that’s the case even for their stretch seating because they do not offer inflight internet. However the entirety of the issue for the FAA is whether airlines are putting too many people into planes such that they cannot evacuate quickly enough in an emergency. All of the focus on comfort is grandstanding. Calls for standards that do not change comfort, in the name of comfort, are an especially cynical form of grandstanding.
I’m really surprised you don’t recognise seat pitch as an example of market failure. Because people are driven by price, and the variations in quality [at any given time] are minimal, the market competes down seat pitches (and amounts of padding) and I don’t see how that trend stops. The airlines who are an inch or so below the others are shifting the market and meanwhile free-riding on the average reputation of aviation. I am not a fan of unnecessary government regulation but it is absolutely required here.
Despite getting up, wearing flight socks, moving around and exercising, I still got a dvt from flying long haul from HKG to LHR in economy. A small part of that dvt broke away and went to one of my lungs.
I now have to inject dalteparin if the flight is more than 6 hours. I have been questioned by cabin and flight deck crew as to why I was injecting into my belly fat. One captain was even questioning I was fit to fly despite having a certified letter from my doctor and full insurance cover.
I am just over 6’ tall. Any further reduction in seat pitch would be detrimental.
And yes, if available I do book extra legroom seats.
I’m not sure that trying to keep things from getting worse until a solid rule is established is really a bad idea. Would allowing airlines to make changes, then forcing them to reverse those changes in a fairly short time frame be better?
I flew frontier for four hours and some minutes and it was unbelievably uncomfortable and I am not a large person I’m 5 ft 2. I don’t have much padding on my booty and with the seats on frontier that have hardly any padding my tailbone was damaged –bruised. So I’ve learned one thing –I will never fly frontier again. I’m going to be on Delta, American,Southwest,Hawaiian air and Alaska.I will not fly United
because of their stingy policies and I will not fly Frontier because the seats aren’t padded enough. So sadly Yes let’s legislate some larger seats since some of these airlines are too stingy to do so.