Travelers call on FAA to widen seats – as airlines admit they SHRUNK to deal with demand

Fed up travelers have demanded the FAA to widen seats on passenger planes after airlines admitted they had shrunk to meet recent demand and cheaper ticket prices, a series of scathing complaints on the agency’s website has revealed.

The outcry comes after Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials in August asked the public for their opinion on the size and subsequent safety of their mandatory seats, which have withered drastically over the years.

Within months, more than 26,000 travelers had responded – with nearly all complaints about a lack of legroom and comfort on US flights.

The commentary section paints a bleak picture of the declining passenger experience at the US’s most popular airlines – with the word “torture” in over 200 of the passenger posts.

The public forum was closed last week, with the FAA — which has no rules on seat sizes and has been pressured by Congress to pass a verdict on their accepted measurements — yet to respond.

It comes as several US airlines have revealed that they have reduced seat width by as much as two inches from the 18.5 inches that has been near-universal in recent years.

Legroom has also shrunk drastically, to 31 inches from an average of 35. On some carriers, that distance — measured from one point in a seat to the same point in a front or back seat — is just 28 inches.

The agency has since been subject to increased pressure from lawmakers and passengers regarding the legality of those changes, amid concerns that the seats are too cramped for passengers to evacuate.

Airlines, meanwhile, have pushed back calls to widen their seats, arguing that the seats are wide enough and far enough apart to allow for a quick evacuation.

“Current seats are too small for average-sized Americans, myself included,” a concerned commentator named Emily Clarke wrote at the desk amid the flurry of negative comments about seat size concerns.

Clarke added that she is concerned that the shifts, made by airlines to boost their profits, will “significantly affect my ability to evacuate the aircraft quickly in an emergency.”

She, like so many others, would call on the FAA to take action and empower those airlines with new seat requirements to address those safety concerns — not to mention inconvenience.

“My wife and I recently flew to Grand Cayman on a Boeing 737 800/900 and felt noticeably uncomfortable in the small seats,” commentator John Naughton wrote in one of those critiques.

“Not only are the small seats terribly uncomfortable,” Naughton noted that the packed planes “seemed a terrible danger if it were necessary to evacuate the plane because of an emergency.”

He added that the cramped conditions also “create the potential for undue tension among passengers.”

Other, larger travelers objected to the noticeably reduced legroom on flights — one of many practices by airlines that have tried in recent months to recoup losses incurred during the first two years of the pandemic.

Scott Parkinson, a six-foot-tall man, wrote in October that the lack of legroom required him to wedge his knees into the seat in front of him to stay seated, leaving him “in pain the entire flight.”

“I am a six-foot-tall man,” Parkinson wrote, adding that he is “of average height” in his family and has relatives “even taller than me.”

The traveler further stated that “legroom on flights was painfully inadequate.”

“It’s even worse if the passenger leans back in front of my seat,” he continued.

“I often have back and knee pain when I try to get up after a flight and I often find it difficult to walk after a long flight. If I had to evacuate the plane in an emergency, I would find it difficult and I would be much slower than usual.’

He suggested chairs ‘be spaced further apart” so that travelers “have a decent amount of legroom and your knees don’t touch or jostle the seat in front of you.”

Jill Kenney went on to add that the seats for her son, who she says weigh 215 pounds and measure a similar six feet, are “too small for his legs to fit comfortably.”

She added that she was also tall with long legs and then the seats are “too narrow for me.”

The concerned mother would then raise concerns about safety – which she said had been at the forefront of looking at the lowered seats.

She went on to predict that airlines would “charter fewer fights…if people could fit in more comfortably.”

“I’m most concerned about safety,” Kenney wrote. “If you’re sitting at the window, it may take too long to evacuate through the narrow aisles.”

She continued: ‘There would also be fewer fights’ [airlines] if people could fit in it more comfortably. I have traveled on over 26 flights so far this year. I speak from experience.’

Numerous other comments raised nearly identical protests about the FAA’s failure to address its safety and comfort concerns, such as federal the law requires the agency to rule on minimum chair sizes with both concepts in mind.

However, in official comments submitted to the FAA, the union that represents the major U.S. airlines — Airlines for America and the International Air Transport Association — urged the agency to continue to focus on safety, “not comfort or ease’.

Any decision from the agency — which recently raised its average passenger weight requirements to deal with the increasing weight of Americans — will be critical for the airlines, which have balanced the demand for cheaper airfare and more space.

The agency increased its average weight figures in 2019 by adding 15 pounds to the average winter and summer weight for men and 34 pounds for female passengers.

Meanwhile, the FAA — which oversees all aspects of civil aviation in the country — continues to pressurize Congress and passengers to pass a judgment on reducing seat sizes.

Federal standards require an aircraft to be evacuated in an emergency within 90 seconds of coming to rest, and a 2018 law requires the FAA to establish minimum dimensions for safe seats.