Says It Can Find No Evidence That Evacuation Times Are Affected

The FAA has sent a letter to the airline passenger rights organization Flyers Rights saying it is not responsible for the amount of legroom available on airliners.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Flyers Rights sued the FAA demanding that it set standards for legroom, saying that it was a safety issue. The organization said that shrinking legroom on airliners and the increasing size of the average American make it more difficult to evacuate an airliner in an emergency situation.

When the FAA said initially that it would not undertake a formal rulemaking process to require a minimum of legroom on airliners, a federal judge ordered the FAA to reconsider its position. But the FAA concluded that it can find "no evidence that a typical passenger, even a larger one, will take more than a couple of seconds to get out of his or her seat" in the case of an emergency.

The letter was delivered to Flyers Rights on Monday. Flyers Rights President Paul Hudson said the organization is reviewing the letter, but that a second appeal is likely. "his response is mainly couched in the idea that they don't know of evidence that larger passengers in smaller seats, and older passengers, would be able to get out as quickly as smaller passengers, younger passengers," he told the paper. "We'll be reviewing it, but it's likely we'll be going back to the appeal court."

Brent Bowen, a professor at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Prescott, AZ campus, who has published an annual Airline Quality Rating for the past 28 years, said that the only real solution is for Congress to mandate a minimum legroom on airlines. "The airlines are not going to set a reasonable standard," he said.

FMI: Original report