Something tells me exiting in emergencies could be a tad complicated
Why not install meat hooks and hang us from the ceiling? Start off with a complementary, sedative-laden drink to keep us quiet. They could really jam us in then.
Window seat, aisle or back-to-front?
Airline passengers may be required to sit facing the rear of the aircraft by a new seating layout designed to pack more people in as well as giving everyone more legroom. Ten airlines, including one British carrier, are considering turning half their economy-class seats to face the opposite way to the other half to squeeze in an extra column of seats along the aircraft.
Airlines could add up to 50 seats to each aircraft and increase the seat pitch, the gap between one seat and the seat in front, by four inches (10cm).
The traditional seating layout is constrained by people sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. This typically means leaving a two-inch gap between seats for an armrest. Under the new layout, one person’s shoulders would be alongside his neighbour’s knees, removing a gap.
By saving on the armrest space an extra seat could be fitted in each row.
And now, your no-shit-Sherlock quote of the week:
[Ben Bettell, the company’s development director] admitted that tests had shown that some passengers might feel uncomfortable with being able to establish eye contact with neighbours.
Moo.
With the extra seating space, they’ll have room on the plane to carry more crying babies. They never seem to have enough of them.
I can only imagine how people who suffer from motion sickness will feel about this.
Why don’t they pack people in music concert style? You know, compressed so tightly that you can lift your feet off the ground. That way you dont really have to worry if the peope fall down when the planet takes off and lands, or hits turbulance?
Also, part of the reason seats are facing forward is to make sure most of the passengers are dead in the event of a crash, survivability increases like 90% in a rear facing seat, because you dont break your legs and can escape the burning hulk of an airplane. The wrongful death lawsuit costs the airline much less than disability pay of a crash survivor.
And this is better than high-speed rail how?
I second Smartalix!
And the next time you’re stranded on a snowed-in runway for 9+ hours with no food and no way out, you can just lean forward and rip a chunk out of your fellow passenger’s shoulder with your teeth.
In one job I had for about 6 years I used to fly a pretty good bit. (45,000 miles/yr or so.) I never figured out how they always managed to seat the skinny people together, and the fat people (i.e. me) together. ALWAYS. It would be me and another 300 lb piece of beef sitting shoulder to shoulder right behind two 130 lb popsickles. I always seemed to be on overbooked flights that wouldn’t allow me to use my FF miles to upgrade out of cattle class, too. (Usually. There WAS this one time I got into first class with a cabin full of models on their way to a photo shoot somewhere. Knockout gorgeous. None of them said so much as hello to me, of course. Whatever. Then there was the ONE other time in cattle class that I actually got seated next to a really cute girl who promptly fell asleep on my shoulder. And drooled all over me for an hour.)
I don’t know what you guys are bitching about this would be much better than the current method of three or even two across. No shoulder to shoulder seating.
Lots of GA aircraft including very nice business jets have rear facing seats and there are some studies that they are safer in a crash..
Oh, I forgot, and it would be much better than Airbus’s idea.
Se the one on the far right.
http://tinyurl.com/mlap4
[Editor: Please use tinyurl.com for long urls]
That looks just perfect for voyeuristic masturbation.
Am I the only one that spends the money to get a first class or exit row seat whenever possible?
I have seen the plans for future aviation designs, Its all about our comfort and their profitability. Its looks pretty good, check it out:
http://tinyurl.com/2mybfp
I heard — somewhere — that the rear-facing seats were also the product of a research into women’s flying preferences.
As I guy, I’d hate them unless the person facing me is exceedingly good to look at.
(OK ,sexist, I know but no reason not to be honest here.)
This type of layout is probably more about reducing the weight per ticket sold than increasing leg room and adding another row. This is bcause with this type of layout there is no longer room to place item’s under the “seat in front of you”. Since the FAA does not allow items to be placed under one’s own seat all items will need to be placed in the overhead compartment (which seems to be getting smaller all the time).
Secondly, since there is no “seat in front of you”, all of the tray tables will need to be stored in the “side arm position” For those of us with a wider girth (which more and more americans have now days) these constitute a physical vise like constraint which make flying very uncomfortable.
This means that since only people of a leaner body type, with effectively no carry on baggage, will be able to fly, the airlines will be able to effectivly reduce the amount of “weight per ticket” to be transported and will then significantly reduce the amount of fuel used per flight. At todays prices for fuel, this can make a big difference as to the cost of the flight.
#13, loose or tight packing?
#13 LMFAO!!!!!
13, mark, looks just like what the airlines want. Why not put in double decking for twice the fun? 🙂
Let’s see, 50 extra people at avg. 160 lbs. is 8,000 more pounds on board. Since aircraft have strict limits on center of gravity and gross weight, the pounds have to come from either baggage or fuel. In marginal weather, I’ll bet the pilot in command doesn’t want to leave that half hour of fuel behind. What, jettison the beer ?!?
17. Hey, with this plan weight is evenly distributed, and with the jewelry they give you, none of those annoying trips to the head. Have a little trouble with that serving cart though, gotta work on that.
11 – Angel – LOL – You can mine a sexual innuendo out of the god-damnedest places…
This story makes no difference to me. I won’t fly within the U.S.A. anyhow and I don’t fly much on Mexico’s airlines either.
This post is old and I will not likely see the reply, but I wanted to say to #16 that I dont understand your points about ‘no seat in front of you’ space. Clearly a column of chairs will have one seat infront of the other, and indeed if you look at the picture above you can see there is space below each seat where someone behind you could access.
I personally would love a laying down area, you could fit more people higher up the curve of the plane if you let people lay down, kind of where the carry on is.
#21
I blame growing up in a catholic school 🙂
With this seating arrangement, you could probably pack a round thousand potential crash deaths into an Airbus 380. Cool.
First class is quite comfy folks…..you should try it. 🙂
I don’t fly in the states either, unless forced to. I prefer to drive or take the train(slow as it is). I’ve wondered for a long time why we don’t build a high speed train line. Cleaner than buses, planes or cars…..fast smooth ride between cities. Main lines could be like Boston to New York to Chicago, to San Fransisco to L.A. to Phoenix to Dallas to Atlanta to New York. Then fast side trains like they have in Europe for the less traveled lines.
I think there would be a huge market for bullet trains.
#27, We’re still waiting on a fresh shipment of Reardon steel for the tracks.