This bill would stop the ongoing saga of the incredible shrinking airline seat

As the behinds of people in the U.S. have gotten bigger, airplane seats have gotten smaller — faster. But one U.S. politician is determined to make economy seating feel a bit less like a cattle pen.

Congressman Steve Cohen, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, proposed a bill Monday that would establish minimum seat size standards for airplanes.

"Shrinking seat sizes isn’t just a matter of comfort but safety and health as well," Cohen said at the bill's introduction. 

"The Federal Aviation Administration requires that planes be capable of rapid evacuation in case of emergency, yet they haven’t conducted emergency evacuation tests on all of today’s smaller seats."

Cohen is presenting the Seat Egress in Air Travel (SEAT) Act to the FAA on Thursday.

Since the 1970s, airline seat widths have shrunk from 18 inches to 16.5, Cohen says. And that might not even be telling the worst of it: Seat designs have also been slimmed down, with smaller armrests, putting us even closer to our seatmates while claiming the same amount of space.

Meanwhile, the average American behind has increased from 14 inches for men and 14.4 inches for women in 1962, to more than 15 inches forty years later, according to CNN.

Seat width is not the only measurement that impacts passenger comfort. Seat pitch — the measurement from one point on a seat to the same point on the seat in front or behind — has decreased from an average 35 inches in the 1970s to 31 inches today. Your knees may have informed you of this decrease recently.

Cohen is not suggesting specific measurements, but instead wants the FAA to study the issue and determine safe seat sizes.

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