800 Independence Ave., S.W. 

Washington, DC 20591 

February 1, 2016 

Mr. Paul Hudson 

President 

FlyersRights.org 

218 D St. SE 

Washington, DC 20003 

Dear Mr. Hudson: 

This is in response to your letter dated August 26, 2015, posted to the public docket 

No. FAA-2015-4011, petitioning the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to: 

1. Exercise its discretionary rulemaking authority under 49 U.S.C. 106, to impose 

within 180 days, reasonable regulations setting maintenance standards and 

limiting the extent of seat size changes in order to ensure consumer safety, health, 

and comfort. 

2. Issue an order within the next 45 days placing a moratorium on any further 

reductions in seat size, width, pitch, padding, and aisle width until a final rule is 

issued. 

3. Appoint an advisory committee or task force to assist and advise the FAA in 

proposing seat and passenger space rules and standards; with such committee 

having broad representation of the various interests involved, and expertise 

needed, to include this petitioner and representatives from other airline passenger 

advocacy organizations and individuals. 

In accordance with 14 CFR 11.73(a), the FAA uses 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 available to address these issues. 
2

After reviewing your request per § 11.73(a), we have determined the issues you raised do 

not meet the criteria to pursue rulemaking. 

First, the issues you identify relate to passenger health and comfort, and do not raise an 

immediate safety or security concern. 

The chief safety benefit you have proposed is an improvement in emergency evacuation. 

Your letter discusses perceived shortcomings with the FAA-required tests of airlines’ 

emergency evacuation plans; however, those are not the only evacuation tests required by 

the FAA. We require full-scale evacuation demonstrations and analysis that set the limit 

for the maximum number of passengers for any given airplane model. These 

demonstrations occur prior to FAA certification of the airplane design. These 

demonstrations have interior configurations that are more critical (less seat pitch and 

higher number of passengers) than most configurations operated by the airlines. No 

airline configuration can exceed the number of passengers substantiated for evacuation. 

You use the Boeing 777-300 as an example, implying the evacuation tests were not 

conducted with the maximum occupancy of 550 passengers. In 1998, The Boeing 

Company ran an emergency evacuation test of the 777-300 with 550 occupants, in dark 

conditions with half the exits randomly blocked and with debris in the aisles, and 

successfully met the 90-second evacuation limit. The existing standards for evacuation 

time have been demonstrated to be safe. 

Your letter suggests that failed tests for evacuation capability can be repeated without 

determining the reason for a test failure. This is not the case. Failures must be identified 

and resolved before a test may be repeated. As this is part of the certification process 

requiring that applicants submit proprietary data, such reasons are not made public, but 

they are documented and resolved with the FAA. Your letter also states that tests have 

not been run with seat pitch below 31 inches. This is also not the case. Full scale 

evacuation tests on widely used airplanes have been successfully conducted at 28- and 

29-inch pitch, when substantiating the maximum occupancy. Seat pitch alone does not 

determine the amount of space available between seats. The seat design will play an 

important role. In general, modern, thinner seats at lower seat pitch provide more space 

than older seats did at higher pitch. 

With respect to the potential for deep vein thrombosis, it is medically advisable to 

periodically move around on a long flight, irrespective of the seat pitch, to prevent the 

onset of thrombosis, which does occur on rare occasions. This is a health issue that 

applies to any long-duration seated activity where a person remains immobile, rather than 

an aviation safety issue. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the 

risk of venous thromboembolism is the same for economy-class and business-class travel. 

The risk increases with increasing travel duration and with preexisting risk factors. 

Each year the FAA prioritizes its rulemaking projects based on issues that are crucial to 

the safety of the aviation community and the traveling public to ensure we deliver the 

most value to the aviation system. 
3

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

assessed with regard to their costs and benefits. Mandating specific seat size and spacing 

would carry significant cost, unless all seats already met the standards. The safety 

benefits of such a mandate are not apparent. 

Although we are not inclined to initiate rulemaking based on your petition, your 

comments and arguments for the proposed rule change will be placed in a database, 

which we will examine when we consider future rulemaking. If the FAA does pursue 

rulemaking in this area in the future, you would be able to find out and track it through 

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). 

For the reasons above, we must dismiss your petition for rulemaking in accordance with 

14 CFR 11.73. 

Sincerely, 

//s// 

Dorenda D. Baker 

Director, Aircraft Certification Service