There already is such a process. You can check websites like seatguru.com to get information about the seat pitch, available power outlets and so forth.
I’m not much on adding regulations but I’d think this would be covered under basic sale transactions.
Selling an airline seat is like selling apples for $1. What kind of apple? How many for $1? How much do they weigh?
It should be part of the standard description of merchandise. It’s good that there are sites that help with this but why should we have to rely on what should be a normal transaction?
You’re right. A government-mandated minimum pitch of 25 inches would give me personal comfort at the expense of others.
IOW, just because government specifies some minimum standard, doesn’t mean they’re requiring that everybody get treated luxuriously. Your post that I criticized set up a strawman by assuming that any government-enacted minimum would require luxury. This is no more true than claiming that the existence of a minimum wage means that government would require that everyone would get paid $50/hour.
‘Gee, I’ve been so busy thinking about profits, I haven’t actually thought about our product.’
When you search for premium economy on Orbitz, the website looks for a special code indicating a separate cabin. Most airlines do not do that, they intermingle economy and premium economy under the same fare codes.
I just looked at the first four flights that came up on united.com for each of those routes, departing on September 20 and returning a week later. Literally every single flight had Economy Plus seats available for an additional fee. And in fact, two flights (one to San Francisco and one to San Diego) had no seats available in economy, but 10+ seats available in Economy Plus.
On the United website, you can see what seats are available prior to selecting your flight. The Economy Plus seats are clearly marked with blue boxes.