WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sens. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin wrote to Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford demanding answers on nearly two-year-overdue airplane evacuation testing and the agency's decision to allow airlines to reduce flight attendant staffing on some long-haul widebody flights. The senators expressed concern that there may be more emergency exit doors than flight attendants in the event of an evacuation, and called on the FAA to study the impact of reduced staffing on evacuation efficiency.

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have all received FAA approval to reduce the number of flight attendants on some aircraft under rules that require one flight attendant for every 50 passengers. Last year, the FAA certified American's new 787-9P aircraft seating configuration with minimum staffing of seven flight attendants, despite the plane having eight exit doors. On June 25, the FAA observed American successfully complete evacuation safety demonstrations with seven flight attendants on its Boeing 787-9P airplanes. American's 787-9P aircraft have a lower seating capacity than its other 787 models, which require eight flight attendants.

"Reducing the minimum crew requirement means that a single Flight Attendant is solely responsible for operating two doors, up to 19 feet apart. This means one Flight Attendant could be responsible for evacuating hundreds of passengers across two aisles and middle column seats," the senators wrote. "Furthermore, reduced staffing poses additional risk in the unfortunate event that a Flight Attendant is left incapacitated during a serious incident," they added.

"Without a certified Flight Attendant positioned at every dual-aisle floor-level exit, passengers could be left vulnerable at precisely the moment they must rely on skilled, decisive guidance and rapid action from highly trained and certified Flight Attendants," Duckworth and Baldwin wrote.

The Association of Professional Flight Attendants called the minimum staffing numbers an "industry-wide problem of airlines reducing minimum crew, leaving widebody exit door(s) exposed without a trained Flight Attendant to evacuate."

Congress mandated that the FAA complete updated evacuation testing within one year of the agency's reauthorization bill passing; that deadline passed in May 2025. The FAA's 2019 evacuation tests did not include real-world scenarios such as luggage in the cabin and passengers who were children, seniors or disabled. The FAA requires an aircraft to be evacuated within 90 seconds. In 2024, passengers and crew took between 11 and 18 minutes to fully evacuate Japan Airlines Flight 516 after it collided with a coast guard plane at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, according to accounts from the airline and the Japan Transport Safety Board.

"After seeing more and more aircraft evacuations that don't meet the 90-second standard that the FAA is supposed to hold itself to, we passed legislation requiring them to ensure that evacuation standards reflect the world of flying today. Two years later, they still haven't done so. All the while, the FAA continues to allow airlines to reduce the size of their crew, further weakening their ability to meet federal evacuation standards," Duckworth said. Asked about her ability to evacuate within 90 seconds, she said: "Not at all confident, not at all confident. I often fly where I'm not wearing both my artificial legs. I don't think it's realistic anymore."

Robert Sumwalt, a former National Transportation Safety Board chair and transportation safety analyst, said the agency should revisit its rules. "It's definitely time for the FAA to go back and reassess what standards they're using for evacuations. It's been almost 35 years since those standards were published," Sumwalt said.

The FAA has completed the initial portion of its study on improving evacuation efficiency and is working with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to review research on seat pitch and seat width before completing the study. A 2020 Department of Transportation Inspector General report found that the FAA's process of updating evacuation standards "lacks data collection and analysis on current risks." An FAA spokesman said the agency will respond directly to the lawmakers.