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Why your airline seat may shrink even more under new regulations

8 points by cmurf 8y ago

ggm 8y ago
So they show a table confirming only two out of about eight airlines have a 28" pitch, and yet they argue the legal minima will become 28. Guys.. its not that hard: force the two dogs to come up to scale, set the minimum at 31" or 32" and then give some cost support to migrate. PS Airlines re-configure seating when it suits them. The "it costs too much to move them" argument feels pretty tragically bogus. Somebody lobbied to hard, if thats being believed.
- justtopost 8y ago
  Except it was noted that anything 27" or more is 'safe'. While they could easily force a few to make them 30", there is no legal reason to do so, even when it is clearly the right thing to do here.
  - ggm 8y ago
    Oh I have no doubt we won't get regulation for public good: we'll get regulation for minimum cost/lawsuit outcome.
mrob 8y ago
>“It would have been nice if they did this in 1985,” Elliott said. “If the government does what I think it’s going to do, this is going to give airlines a license to reduce space even more. I don’t see the consumer benefit.” The obvious consumer benefit is cheaper flights. Smaller seats mean lower costs, and competition should force airlines to pass the savings on to consumers. If they're colluding to keep the savings to themselves, that's a failure of anti-trust law, not a failure of seat size law. I don't see why the government should force people to pay extra for luxury.
- bausshf 8y ago
  Don't be too optimistic about "smaller seats meaning lower costs" because it might not. Cereal packages has gotten smaller, but the prices for cereal hasn't gone down.
  - jdpedrie 8y ago
    That's a bad comparison. Generally, shrinking the size of a packaged good is a way to compensate for inflation without sticker shock, a huge problem in a very price-sensitive market like groceries. The chief the government measures inflation, in fact, is the Consumer Price Index, which measures the cost of a "basket" of consumer goods. [0] The cost of flying, on the other hand, has fallen dramatically since deregulation. [1] [0] https://www.bls.gov/CPI/ https://www.bls.gov/CPI/ [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-air...

8 points by cmurf 8y ago

ggm 8y ago

So they show a table confirming only two out of about eight airlines have a 28" pitch, and yet they argue the legal minima will become 28. Guys.. its not that hard: force the two dogs to come up to scale, set the minimum at 31" or 32" and then give some cost support to migrate. PS Airlines re-configure seating when it suits them. The "it costs too much to move them" argument feels pretty tragically bogus. Somebody lobbied to hard, if thats being believed.

justtopost 8y ago
Except it was noted that anything 27" or more is 'safe'. While they could easily force a few to make them 30", there is no legal reason to do so, even when it is clearly the right thing to do here.
- ggm 8y ago
  Oh I have no doubt we won't get regulation for public good: we'll get regulation for minimum cost/lawsuit outcome.

mrob 8y ago

>“It would have been nice if they did this in 1985,” Elliott said. “If the government does what I think it’s going to do, this is going to give airlines a license to reduce space even more. I don’t see the consumer benefit.” The obvious consumer benefit is cheaper flights. Smaller seats mean lower costs, and competition should force airlines to pass the savings on to consumers. If they're colluding to keep the savings to themselves, that's a failure of anti-trust law, not a failure of seat size law. I don't see why the government should force people to pay extra for luxury.

bausshf 8y ago
Don't be too optimistic about "smaller seats meaning lower costs" because it might not. Cereal packages has gotten smaller, but the prices for cereal hasn't gone down.
- jdpedrie 8y ago
  That's a bad comparison. Generally, shrinking the size of a packaged good is a way to compensate for inflation without sticker shock, a huge problem in a very price-sensitive market like groceries. The chief the government measures inflation, in fact, is the Consumer Price Index, which measures the cost of a "basket" of consumer goods. [0] The cost of flying, on the other hand, has fallen dramatically since deregulation. [1] [0] https://www.bls.gov/CPI/ https://www.bls.gov/CPI/ [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-air...