floridastorm

The FAA is studying it from a medical standpoint. Cramped seating, especially on flights that are over 5 hours, have been proved to cause or exacerbate the condition DVT (deep vein thrombosis) which is a life threatening condition. I believe recent studies have concluded that nearly 50% of people who fly, and most predominantly in economy class, end up with DVT type conditions which eventually causes blood clots in their arteries that find their way to the heart, brain, or lungs. This is one of the major causes of premature death in the United States. There are a multitude of safety regulations promulgated by OSHA for all companies in this country to protect employees. Without these safety regulations I'm wondering how many companies would do it on their own? The airlines fall under OSHA and I think that OSHA should be regulating seating requirements aboard airlines to protect against medical conditions like DVT.

Often1

OSHA, of course, regulates US air carriers. But, its sole authority is for employee working conditions. It has zero authority to regulate passenger safety or comfort.

Bottom line is that this issue is dead, dead, dead. When something is sent off for study by a government agency, that is a nice way of saying that it is dead.

PepeBorja

The reality is airlines are becoming “utility” like and should be subject to some minimum regulation to prevent the kind of behaviors that create the problems we see today.
A simple formula that an airline seat can not be sold for less than $X cents per mile flown can level off the playing field and remove the driving forces causing sardine like conditions.

Take PHL to MCO route. I have been flying that route for 4 years and have seen prices from $100 to $800 RT on AA with discounters often selling them for $49 each way.
The route is 861 miles giving AA between 5.8 cents/mile and 46.4 cents/mile with discounters selling for roughly 5.6 cents/mile

If the rule for a route of this range were set to be 10 cents a mile that means the MINIMUM price for a OW ticket is $86.10 and a RT is $172.20.
Airlines can still set any price they like as long as it does not violate the minimum price. The minimum rule is there to prevent pricing wars that drive prices and product quality down.

Having an equal baseline would force everyone to compete on the entire product and not just price for a seat.

m44

The 28-29" is OK if one is classified as little people or a circus midget. For normal people, it is 32-33" just for safety and preservation of health.
For comfort, the seat pitch needs to be 33-36" like it was before deregulation.
Those who claim that the free market works or should work - should be asked to provide a proof. There is no free market, never was and never will - the free market is a theory that was never proven, and to the contrary today the USA market clearly proves that the free market is a pipe dream and that the market was damaged by the deregulation and permissiveness for consolidation.
Research the issue of the seat pitch (e.g. https://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...idth/16105491/) and stop the nonsensical pronouncements - please!

cbn42

"Consumer" refers to whoever is paying for the ticket. If someone is flying on someone else's dime, then this needs to be worked out between them. If enough people refuse to fly ULCC, then companies will have to pay higher fares or risk losing qualified employees.

Quite the contrary, when Congress mandates a government agency to study something and issue regulations, that usually means there is going to be some action soon. This is the only way that such regulations are created.

That was already tried during the regulation era. I don't think there is any political appetite for going that far.

danielSuper

If it would be up to free market, they would refuse transport based on race, nation of origin and many other things. A public service must be regulated since it serves marginalized and underpriviledged. They use public money during banktrupcies, from airport and ATC funding; they are not some exclusive elective service. With many remote locations and constant lobby against public transport and fast rail they are often a functional monopoly. Regulate to the ground!

danielSuper

They use airline employees for that test, once per decade for a type or so. I don't believe 28 inch pitch test was done at all, correct me if I'm wrong.
Those employees are fit, thin, educated and not under stress. It's a total circus.

HLCinCOU

LarryJ's post above linked some details about the testing procedures. Your description doesn't sound like what's described there. Do you have a source?

HLCinCOU

I'm not sure how setting a floor on fares will cause airlines to increase pitch. It will, however, definitely cause a loss of utility to travelers. Probably greater than any loss from a direct regulation of pitch.

HLCinCOU

But this wasn't sent off for study. It was mandated for rulemaking. Those are just about opposites.

danielSuper

I know how it's done, aka it's not done at all nowadays. It's simulated on computer.
(Sources: http://assets.documentcloud.org/docu...DC-Circuit.pdf)

As an example, one evacuation test of A380 was done 12 years ago. There is a video of it It's the most unrealistic stuff ever, those guys could compete in triathlon. And that Airbus was like 35 inch pitch economy. I want to see same test with 737 MAX with 29 inch pitch with a load of grandmas and kids to Florida and obese members reflecting population data.

HLCinCOU

Well that's thoroughly interesting! For those less interested in me in reading the DC Circuit's opinion, I feel like this is the money quote:

Anyway they do talk about the invalidity of the tests, but not maybe in as descriptive a way as we'd like. But then there's the video...

Wow, that's something to see. Certainly you're right that it's not at all representative of the actual population. Zero obese people for sure. I didn't even see that children and seniors were represented, as the FAA sheet Larry put up seemed to indicate was required. And they had a broken leg in that test even under pretty ideal conditions. Thanks for the post!

trooper

And would you be happy to pay the equivalent "pre-deregulation" fares?* Maybe you would, but it seems many people want less seats on each aircraft (OK ..they don't phrase it that way but you can't give each pax more room without reducing seat numbers) BUT expect no increase in fares. I put my money where my mouth is for long haul (and from Australia it is LOONG haul!) and buy Premium Economy. (BTW..when you can - so often - fly SYD-LAX return for under $1000 (and that's AUD!) you can't really expect roomy seating!

* Quoting The Atlantic - from an article of Feb 2013
"In 1974 it was illegal for an airline to charge less than $1442 in inflation adjusted dollars for a flight between New York City and Los Angeles." Want to go back to THAT?

RAAng

Seeing as how the government looks the other way at what appears, at least from the outside, to be a fair amount of airline collusion on a variety of issues, regulation is the price the airlines should pay. There is very little differentiation in the product, and anyway I can't really shop for airlines when my home airport is a hub. Delta may have a better product (I doubt it in any meaningful way), but I would never know because the Delta flights from PHL are pretty scarce, particularly internationally. So the market system doesn't really operate in the airline industry unless (I'm assuming) JFK is your home airport. Given that, regulation is in order, including for a base level of comfort for my hard-earned money.

floridastorm

Airlines, just like any business that has a captive audience, will do whatever they legally can to make "maximum" profit since stockholders and bean counters are running everything these days. If the airlines could have people stand for the entire flight or take out bathrooms and galleys to make more room then they would. Some airlines actually proposed installing seats that would have the passengers literally standing up. They also proposed charging for bathroom use as if charging for checked bags, carry on bags, anything to drink and eat, to include paying for a specific seat (not a premium seat) was not enough. We have become a super egalitarian society where it's a race to the bottom. Everything is geared towards the lowest denominator and probably the reason we have 90 year old ladies pumping their own gasoline and a great many students who can't spell "It" or make change for a dollar.