Carriers could be forced to decrease the amount of seats on flights after the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee said some aircraft were too cramped.
The committee called on the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to increase the minimum regulatory distance between seats on commercial aircraft from 26” (66cm) to 28.2” (71.6cm) because of worries that some passengers are unable to adopt the brace position in emergencies.
”We are very concerned that the CAA has failed to follow its own research and increase the minimum seat pitch to above 28”,” said committee member Lord Patel.
The CAA said most UK airlines already offer a 28” seat pitch, and that it will soon be up to be the European Aviation Safety Authority (EASA) to create any legal limit.
”The UK is the only EU country to have a minimum requirement, but in 2001 we sponsored research on seats for the Joint Aviation Authority (JAA), precursor for the EASA, with idea that it might be able to create a blanket rule for the EU,” said a CAA spokesman.
”However the JAA didn”t do anything with the statistics, so the UK simply kept its 26” requirement.”
An EASA spokeswoman said currently the only requirement is that passengers must be able to be evacuate aircraft within 90 seconds - ”Once we become responsible for operational rules ” and the European Commission has proposed EASA”s remit should be extended, which could happen in late 2008 - then we”d have to also go through consultation periods on any proposed changes, so nothing would change probably until 2010.”
It is thought some charter carriers and budget airlines would have to rearrange cabins.
ABTN contacted easyJet, which said its seat pitches range from 29””32” ” ”What they”re talking about is 272-28” which is mainly charter carriers,” said a spokeswoman. ”It”s not really a low-cost airline issue, because we have the most modern fleets.”