US senator wants government to set airline seat-size rules

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer wants to require the Federal Aviation Administration to establish seat-size standards for commercial airlines, which he says now force passengers to sit on planes "like sardines."

Schumer said seat pitch, the distance between a point on an airline seat and the same spot on the seat in front of it, has dropped from 35 inches in the 1970s to a current average of closer to 31 inches, and seat width has gone from 18.5 inches to about 16.5 inches.

Schumer pointed to a practice used by some airlines in which passengers are charged more money for seats with extra legroom.

Airlines for America, an industry trade group representing an array of U.S. airlines, said it believes the government's role is to determine a seat size that is safe, but opposes the proposed regulation.