Originally Posted by
Loren Pechtel
Most of us fit the standard seats. Why should we have to pay more to help the minority that do not?
Fitting in the seat is only one part of the issue.
Seat pitch also influences the ease of entry and exit, both for routine purposes like stretching and lavatory visits, and for emergency purposes like evacuations and first responder access to an ill or injured passenger in a non-aisle seat.
Aisle width is important for exactly the same reasons. Aisle width is also a factor in boarding and deplaning disabled people - I think we've all seen the special narrow wheelchair that the airlines need to use to board or deplane a disabled person, and even in the case where the disabled person is not obese, this is a difficult process that makes things even more dangerous in an emergency situation.
So while I have been very vocal in my opinion that anyone who doesn't fit safely into a single seat must buy a second seat or not fly, I also believe that there should be minimum seat and aisle sizes for reasons of safety, comfort, and efficiency. There are probably already aisle width minimums, so it's not too much of a stretch to mandate seat width and pitch minimums as well, if for no other reason than making it possible for a paramedic to treat someone who is having an MI in a window seat or one of the middles of a four-seat row.