Will you stand for less room on flights?
Quote:
Will you stand for less room on flights?
Airbus floats idea of SRO 'seating' to Asian carriers
By CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT
THE NEW YORK TIMES
The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?
A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only "seats."
Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none has agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.
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With a typical configuration, the A380 will accommodate about 500 passengers. But standing-room-only seats would make it easier for the same plane to fit in 853 passengers, the maximum it would be permitted to carry.
"To call it a seat would be misleading," said Volker Mellert, a physics professor at Oldenburg University in Germany, who has done research on airline seat comfort and has seen the design. He said such a configuration would be used only on short-haul flights such as an island-hopping route in Japan.
Although an Airbus spokeswoman played down the idea that Airbus was trying to sell an aircraft that accommodated 853 passengers, the company would not specifically comment on the upright-seating proposal.
There is no legal barrier to installing standing-room seats on an American airliner. The Federal Aviation Administration does not mandate that a passenger be in a sitting position for takeoffs and landings; only that the passenger is secured. Seats must only comply with the agency's rules on the width of aisles and the ability to evacuate quickly.
The Air Transport Association, the trade association for the airline industry in the United States, does not have any seat-comfort standards. Nor does it issue any recommendations on seating configurations.
The two Asian airlines seen as the most likely to buy a large plane for short-haul flights, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, are lukewarm about the Airbus plan.
"Airbus had talked with us about an 800-seat configuration for domestic flights," said Rob Henderson, a spokesman for All Nippon Airways. "It does not fit with our present plans going forward."
A spokesman for Japan Airlines, Geoffrey Tudor, said Airbus had presented its ideas for using the A380 on short-haul flights, but added, "We have no interest in increasing seat capacity to this level."
The full story, including diagrams at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/ ... ats25.html
The story also talks about how seat manufacturers are building seats with thinner seat backs, which should lead to more legroom, however most airlines are choosing to add rows and reduce space. Moooo!
