- Travelers’ displeasure with cramped airplane seating has been rising as planes pack in more seats.
- Sponsored by Sens. Baldwin and Duckworth, the EVAC Act aims to make airplanes more accessible and safe.
- The bill urges the FAA to consider factors like disability or age when writing evacuation guidelines.
It’s no secret that most people who travel via plane hate their tiny, cramped seats. But airplane seating isn’t just uncomfortable — it might be unsafe for some. A new bill moving through Congress aims to address airplane safety for people with disabilities or other restrictions that might make evacuating difficult.
As travel rates steadily return to pre-pandemic levels, airlines have been scrambling to pick up lost profit and fit more people into planes, even looking to models that suggest “double-decker” airplane seating — much to the chagrin of anyone who travels coach.
According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, in 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration solicited public opinion on whether or not seat size on airplanes created safety issues — and for more than 26,000 public commenters, they do.
“It is my belief that much of the acting out by airline passengers is at least in part attributable to the severe overcrowding on airplanes. When people are so crowded that they cannot comfortably move without bumping or annoying someone else, they get tense and angry,” wrote one commenter to the FAA. “I am elderly and can no longer fly unless I pay extra for extra seat room. No one except airline shareholders likes this situation.”
Other submissions called attention to the potential of hip or knee injuries caused by a lack of space between seats. Many also mentioned height and weight as factors that made flying uncomfortable.
“I am a 6’5″ 320lb. man … After most flights I take, my knees are in a considerable amount of pain,” reads another submission. “Being a large person makes moving around the cabin difficult. In the event of an emergency it would very difficult for me to maneuver out of my seat and move out of the way for my fellow passengers for them to get to safety.”
Now, Congress is trying to address the potential safety hazards with the Emergency Vacating of Aircraft Cabin, or EVAC, Act.
In May, US Senators Tammy Baldwin and Tammy Duckworth reintroduced the bill, initially introduced in December 2022. It urges the FAA to “do a better job of taking real-life conditions into account to ensure all types of passengers can safely evacuate in an emergency,” asking the agency to update evacuation standards to take into consideration passengers with disabilities, of different heights and weights, and airplane seat size and configuration, among other things.
Current FAA standards say passengers need to be able to evacuate an airplane within 90 seconds in the case of an emergency, but the bill’s authors say test subjects for this guideline were all adults under the age of 60. The bill also says the tests were conducted in small groups instead of considering that some planes can carry over 200 passengers.
The FAA has not yet investigated potential complications caused by people trying to evacuate with carry-on baggage, despite the National Transportation Safety Board’s suggestion to do so, according to the bill.
In addition to addressing such issues, airlines have also been under pressure as costs of retaining pilots rise, according to reporting from Reuters.
Airplane seat size has long been a contentious issue, with “travel hacks” online claiming to help passengers get more space to themselves on planes, like booking aisle and window seats in a row in the hopes that a single passenger will not take the middle seat, lifting aisle seat armrests, and researching airline seat sizes before booking.
In March, one TikTok user caused controversy when he suggested a “poor man’s first-class” trick: that passengers book an entire row of refundable seats and then cancel the tickets close to boarding time to have a row to themselves.
Representatives for Baldwin, Duckworth, and the FAA did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, sent outside regular business hours.
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