800 Independence Ave., S.W. Washington, DC 20591

December 29, 2015

Mr. Douglas Kidd

Executive Director

National Association of Airline Passengers

2689 Oakton Glen Drive Vienna, VA 22181

Dear Mr. Kidd:

This is in response to your letter dated September 3, 2014, posted to the public docket (No. FAA-2014-0663) petitioning th e Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to initiate rulemaking to amend Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) part 25 to include two new sections. In your petition, you reque st the FAA set uniform minimum standards for seat width and seat pitch. You proposed the minimums be 36 or 38 inch seat pitch

and 19 inch seat width.

In accordance with 14 CFR 11.73, the FAA must use the following criteria when making

a decision as to whether or not to amend current regulations based on a petition for rulemaking:

1. The immediacy of the safety or security concerns you raise;

2. The priority of other issues the FAA must deal with; and

3. The resources we have availabl e to address these issues.

After reviewing your request under these criteri a, based on the curren t priorities for the FAA and the guidelines found in § 11.73, we de termined the issues you raised do not meet the criteria to pursue rulemaking.

First, the issues you identify related to passe nger health and comfort, reduction of stress for cabin crews and passengers and other be nefits do not raise immediate safety or security concerns. The chief safety benefit you have proposed is an improvement in emergency evacuation. We acknowledge that evacuation time is re duced with fewer passengers; however, the existing standards for evacuation time have been demonstrated to be safe. We require full-scale evacuation de monstrations and analysis that set the limit for the maximum number of passengers for any given airplane model. These2
demonstrations have interior configurations that are more critical (less seat pitch and higher number of passengers) than most conf igurations operated by the airlines. No airline configurations can exceed th e tested number of passengers.

Regarding the second and third factors in § 11.73, each year the FAA prioritizes its rulemaking projects based on issues that ar e crucial to the safety of the aviation community and the traveling public.

In addition to the guidelines in § 11.73, Ex ecutive Order 12866 requires all rules to be

cost-beneficial. It a ppears that your estimate of cost information does not consider all relevant factors. For example, you state that you do not anticipate additional regulatory costs to establish this standard. However, your proposal would result in a substantial cost impact. For example, on a typical Boeing 737 there are about 144 economy class seats (6 abreast, 24 rows). Your proposal would effec tively change that conf iguration to about 5 abreast and 20 rows for an approximate lo ss of 44 seats, resu lting in a 30 percent reduction in seats per flight a nd a loss of pot ential revenue.

Also, as you mention in your petition, many ope rators are offering greater legroom as an extra cost option. Passengers who value comf ort over cost already have the option of selecting those seats. However, decreasing the number of seats on an airplane would result in increased costs for all passengers, not only those who would choose to pay more

for comfort.

Although we are declining to initiate rulemaking on your petition, your comments and arguments for the proposed rule change w ill be placed in a database, which we will

examine when we consider future rulemaki ng. If the FAA does pursue rulemaking in this area in the future, you would be able to find out and track it th rough one of the two following websites:

 For significant rulemakings, you can find the status on the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) website ( http://www.dot.gov/regulations/report-onsignificant-rulemakings ).

 For non-significant rulemakings, you can find the status on the DOT’s semi-annual regulatory agenda, through the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affair’s (OIRA) Unified Agenda website ( http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain ).3

For the reasons above, we are dismissing your petition for rulemaking in accordance with

14 CFR 11.73 and E.O. 12866.

Sincerely,

//s//

Dorenda D. Baker Director, Aircraft Certification Service