Don’t let airlines keep shrinking passenger seats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday.
The Democrat urged the public to weigh in on a previously little-noticed public comment period that the Federal Aviation Administration is holding on its seat size policy.
“The ghost of shrinking airplane seats is back,” Schumer said in a statement.
“The good news is we’ve vanquished this specter before and fought against the FAA and the airlines for shrinking our seats, but I am here today to say: We’ve got to keep up the fight.”
He warned that the public has until Nov. 1 to help persuade the FAA to set up rules blocking airlines from shrinking seats.
Passengers had an average 35 inches of legroom until deregulation hit in the 1970s, according to Schumer.
The current average is about 31 inches, he said, while seat width has shrunk about 1.5 inches to 17 inches.
“Any minimum seat and [legroom] size standard should be made with the input of experts and consumers and based on science, passenger health and safety, not only the maximum number of people that can be crammed into one plane to make a buck,” said the senator.
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