FAA to test if shrinking airplane seat sizes are safe

The Federal Aviation Administration will test to see if shrinking airplane seat sizes are safe as the average American gets larger and older.

The agency will run 12 days of live testing in November with 720 volunteers.

They will simulate emergency evacuations to see if different amounts of legroom impact evacuation time.

By federal mandate, an evacuation should take no longer than 90 seconds.

The FAA will use the test results to come up with seat space standards.