UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS ORDERS FAA TO ADDRESS PASSENGER SAFETY CONCERNS REGARDING DECREASED SEAT DIMENSIONS
September 5, 2017
On July 28, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a case it called “the Case of the Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat” ruled, in part, in favor of the passenger rights organization, FlyersRights, holding that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) failed to cite any studies or tests to corroborate its conclusions that seat size did not present a safety or security concern.
FlyersRights had petitioned the FAA to issue rules governing the minimum requirements for seat sizes and spacing on commercial passenger aircraft and to create an advisory committee to assist and advise the FAA on this issue. The organization provided evidence that airline seat and spacing dimensions have steadily decreased in size in the last several decades, particularly in economy-class, where some seat pitches are as small as 28 inches with widths at 17 inches. FlyersRights expressed concern that the decrease in seat size, coupled with the increase in passenger size since the 1960s, imperiled passengers’ health and safety by impeding emergency egress. The FAA denied the request but failed to cite any studies or tests to corroborate its representations to the contrary.
The Court found that when the FAA responds to a petition exposing a life-and-death safety concern, it must adequately explain the facts and policy concerns and those facts must have some basis in the record. While the FAA cited certain studies to the Court, it did not address how increased passenger size interacts with the current seat dimensions to affect emergency egress. The Court further held that “[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.” Finally, the Court was concerned because the FAA claimed that emergency evacuation tests were successfully run with seat dimensions as small as those being used by commercial airlines today but the tests were not provided to the Court.
The matter was sent back to the FAA for a “properly reasoned disposition” of the organization’s safety concerns.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6665).
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