The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering airlines to remove a specific kind of seat from some smaller airliners because of the risk of neck injuries in survivable crashes.
But airlines complain the order will cost them millions more than the nearly $900,000 that the FAA estimates it will cost U.S. carriers to remove the seats, roughly 10,000 in all.
That’s because the FAA didn’t include replacing the seats in its estimate. Airlines, including some from other countries worried about meeting the standard, complained it would be uneconomical to fly with fewer seats on their planes.
SkyWest Airlines of St. George, Utah, for example, said it would cost $250,000 to $500,000 to replace the seats on each of the 120 affected planes in its fleet. SkyWest is a regional carrier that operates feeder flights for the USA's four biggest airlines: American, Delta, United and Alaska.
“Calculating these numbers would make the part cost in the millions just for our fleet,” Daniel Burkhard, SkyWest's engineering manager for compliance, told FAA when the fix was proposed.
At issue are the "Slim" or "Slimplus" seats made by Zodiac Seats California LLC. The seats are on planes such as Boeing’s 717-200 and MD-90-30 aircraft, Bombardier’s CRJ700, CRJ900 and Q400 aircraft, and Embraer’s E170 and E190 planes.
Videos reviewed by the FAA and Brazil’s civil aviation organization found that in a collision, a passenger might slide down the seat with the chin to hit the tray table on the seat ahead in a way that seriously injures the neck.
“The intent of this (airworthiness directive) is to provide a safe outcome for passengers during a survivable crash by preventing serious injuries,” said the 29-page order from Paul Bernado, acting manager of FAA’s transport airplane directorate.
The order is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
A committee of industry officials questioned the testing and the FAA’s proposed order from a year ago, saying the testing was inaccurate and subjective.
But FAA stuck to its order for removing the seats. FAA estimated it would cost $85 to remove each unsafe seat, for a total of $890,970 to remove 10,482 seats flying with U.S. carriers within five years.
Zodiac, SkyWest and Delta Air Lines asked that FAA allow for modifications of the seats, to make them safer.
FAA refused to delay the order, but said if Zodiac develops a remedy short of removing the seats, it could be approved at that time.
