Outdated airline standards put passengers at risk
Airline regulations are out of date, and advocates at NCL are urgently calling on the Biden-Harris Administration to act on recent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization language. Requests we sent to the Administration in 2024 include:
- Nominating a pro-passenger Assistant Secretary of Aviation Consumer Protection
- Establishing minimum seat sizes on airplanes
- Improving reporting of the causes of flight delays
- Ensuring that humans staff customer service channels
- Airline travel does not have to be frustrating for passengers, and the Biden-Harris Administration can do something about it.
Emergency evacuations occur several hundred times annually, and most recent evacuations with publicly accessible timelines exceeded the 90-second standard required by federal law, placing passengers and crew in peril. These standards, unchanged since 2005, are outdated in the face of today’s modern, overcrowded aircraft cabins. The FAA needs to account for increased passenger loads, shrinking seat sizes, aging and differently-abled passengers, and the sheer volume of personal devices and carry-ons brought into the cabin.
Airlines continue to increase the number of passengers on board by shrinking passenger seating. The FAA has yet to set minimum dimensions for airplane seats and has failed to require carriers to increase the number of exits in the aircraft when increasing the number of seats and passengers on board, posing a serious danger when a quick evacuation is needed.
###
About the National Consumers League (NCL)
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.