58 Comments
Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Solution is actually quite easy, if Congress and the FAA only had the courage to do it:

Mandate minimum sit width at 21" and seat pitch at 34-35" -- Americans deserve to have at least minimum comfort while flying, and the airlines can definitely afford to lose a few rows of seats when they are making millions of dollars in profits every year and get bailed out when they don't.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Government regulation now.

And retesting the ability of passengers in the flying sardine cans to evacuate the plane in 90 seconds or less. I am fit and agile and the last time I flew it was clear to me that I would not be able to make it unless I was sitting next to an exit. Any airline that fails the test should be fined retroactively to the date of the last reducton in space that causes failing the test -- for each flight in each failed configurations.

The current state of affairs is ridiculuous and dangerous.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Ask for the bailout money back. :^)

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Yes!! I’ve been saying it for a while now. It’s time to regulate the airlines as they have proven they can’t deliver customer satisfaction on their own due to their collective greed. If anything they are in competition with each other to deliver the least.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

The airlines passed safe to unsafe a long time ago. It would be impossible to safely and quickly evacuate a cabin nowadays. The airlines took COVID money and did nothing with and they are still grabbing every penny they can to the detriment of safety and health.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Regulate Regulate Regulate, it’s the only way flying becomes more about customer service, you have an industry that has become greedy to the point of profit over all else. If governments gets involved then we have the other side of the coin people who want re-election by the people they need so it’s obvious what needs to be done

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Absolutely, it’s time standardization of seat size for safety and comfort is again regulated. Even beyond all the government money to the airlines during the pandemic, they are now making astonishing profits through ancillary fees on top of high fares. You’d think by making the flying experience more enjoyable the airlines could count on sustainable revenue and that would hopefully reduce all the angst and drama associated with flying.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

As a former flight attendant, I feel like the standard rule to be able to evacuate a plane in xx seconds is being disregarded. It's bad enough that airlines cram in more seats, but some idiotic passengers refuse to leave their bags behind in an emergency slowing down the evacuation, and/or stopping to take selfies.. Lives will be lost. the flight attendants/crew will be blamed, slugged, kicked, and spit on. Evacuations are not a joke or a selfie opportunity! Serious talks and rules need to happen!

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

For the health and safety of all people who fly I hope the FAA will mandate seat width and legroom along with seat pitch.. as others have commented it’s the humane thing to do. No one wants be made sick or suffer some ailment like blood clots in your legs from being unable to move or shift positions during an 8 hr. Flight over the ocean. Seems like now it’s profits over comfort and safety.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Regulate. People cannot safely exit a plane in an emergency with the current cramped conditions. Only first-class passengers would get out.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Here's what will happen: a few people in our government will make some noise about this, and some may even issue sternly-worded warnings to the airlines if they don't change their ways. A bunch of broken-brained ultra-partisans in the government and the media will point fingers at the other "team," assigning all blame to the bad party in absolute, and absolving the good party in totality.

And then, nobody in either party will actually do anything about it, or even attempt to. Rinse and repeat. Pretty simple.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Please regulate.

I'm a small woman who's tired of getting kicked in the back on the airline. But I really didn't realize airlines were actually shrinking seats. I usually fly with my spouse and we fold the armrest back so there is more room for our arms. If the FAA can regulate seat width, I'm all for it.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

I'll only take a long (international or transcontinental) if I can fly business class.

Otherwise, it's too much like being locked in a jail cell, with mean guards!

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

It's definitely time for some regulation of the airlines (and maybe while we're at it, let's look at the banks again.....). I finally bit the bullet and invested in "economy plus" getting a bulkhead seat for two international flights this summer. Don't know whether I'll be able to recline my seat (out of courtesy for whoever is behind me), but I'll be able to stretch out my legs. And am willing to have the "no underseat storage that the airline warned me about when I booked the seats.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Congress won’t step in because too many politicians have been bought by corporations.

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Mar 19Liked by Christopher Elliott

Quite frankly, the Greyhound Bus seating looks more attractive than most coach class airline seats. If you’re 6 feet tall and weigh more than 200 lbs, coach may no longer be an option for us. Just try and extricate yourself from the window seat on a 3 X 3 Boeing 737 to go to the restroom and you’ll see why evacuating an aircraft within the FAA timeframe is pure fiction.

Why not regulate aircraft to a maximum of 2 X 2 for smaller aircraft and 2 X 3 X 2 on larger aircraft. Isn’t that what aircraft looked like in the 70s?

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