Originally Posted by
eastindywalrus
- Yes, I favor regulation of seat pitch, provided that the regulation establish a reasonable minimum that is greater than the pitch offered by numerous carriers in the United States today. (See #3 .)
Wow, well I guess that establishes the maximalist position
Seems odd to me that you seem to say you would
only support a limit if it required actual pitch increases in the fleet. I don't see why anyone who supported that wouldn't also support a regulation that simply kept pitch from going even lower.
Anyway, the specifics you lay out (thoroughly! props for the detail in your proposal) mostly make sense if we're going to go there. I have just one misgiving:
Originally Posted by
eastindywalrus
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- No new routes should be approved for an airline unless the aircraft scheduled to operate the route are in complete compliance with the new regulations. This offers an incentive to carriers to update their fleet sooner rather than later. I would be strongly in favor of this restriction taking effect sooner than the regulations affecting the existing routes.
This seems particularly harmful to me. New routes are almost by definition risky and less likely to be profitable to the airline; they are also often served by smaller frames, at least initially. Telling an airline that if they want to open up a new route they have to use a newer or more recently retrofitted plane strikes me as a great way to slow down route network growth. If I'm in a city that lacks service, or is served by only one or two carriers, I absolutely would want other carriers to have the lowest barriers to entry possible. Oh, wait, I
am in a city with two carriers, and I
do want to see low barriers!