What is with this hellish airplane seat arrangement from Airbus?
By Chris Ziegler
Don't be fooled: this isn't a torture device, nor is it a geometric painting from one of the abstractionist masters. It is, somehow, a proposed seating arrangement for aircraft brought to you by the sadists at Airbus, who have now resorted to physically stacking passengers on top of one another.
What?
As near as I can tell, one "advantage" of this setup is that at least some of the seats can be configured to lie flat — but that doesn't change the fact that there are people on top of people. If there was any doubt in your mind that we are merely cargo when we board a flight, this should take care of that.
The airline industry's never-ending push for brutal efficiency has brought us ridiculous seating arrangements before, and I imagine this won't be the last of it. The silver lining, if there is one, is that this is only a patent application right now — there's no sign that this is making it into real aircraft, at least not any time soon.
From fig 1. and 3., it doesn't look like the seating density is any more dense than what are already used to. The sole advantage must be that every seat is a reclining seat.
Lots of asses seem close to a lot of faces in those diagrams. Is there a discount for the poor bastards in the lower seats with a guys ass 6" above them...?
I doubt that kind of config will pass the evac requirements. Airbus and others have filed patents for a variety of seat configs such as this last year in an attempt to corner any/all intellectual property and hope something comes of it.
Can you imagine being on the bottom seat and have an overweight farter above who pigged out on garlic and beans.
---------- ADS -----------
The average pilot, despite the somewhat swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy and caring.
These feelings just don't involve anyone else.