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The reason such an idea won’t pass easily in the US legislative process is because the majority of both parties on relevant committees in Congress will kiss up to a coalition of business interests and concentrated (i.e. airline employee) union interests so as to make it a pain to get to and pass a floor vote.
Originally Posted by
Athena53
Cost is what motivated the airlines to squeeze in the maximum number of seats regardless of comfort level or average passenger size.
Revenue is what motivated the airlines to “pack 'em in”. The more seats per plane, the more sold fares from which they could possibly get more ancillary revenue too. Cost was always just an excuse, as the airlines wanted to maximize revenue and passenger counts among which to distribute the operational costs. The airlines figured out with economy class that demand is inelastic enough that overstuffing things for the bulk of the economy class passengers was more lucrative for the airlines than understuffing all of economy class.