The Evolution of the Ever-Changing Airplane Seat Continues

It’s not just your imagination when you are thinking that the coach seats on airplanes have been shrinking by the decades. Airlines are now offering smaller seats than ever all in the name of squeezing JUST A FEW more people onto that same airplane. Airlines are constantly coming up with ways to save space and maximize passenger counts. From taking away legroom to making the seats more narrow, the airplane seat is ever-changing and that’s not about to stop now. The following are some of the moves that airlines are now trying to make each flight even more profitable by, you guessed it, fitting more people into the same amount of space as before:

The Introduction of the Standing Seat: A standing seat? Yes, that’s correct! One of the newest inventions and innovations in the airline industry is the standing seat. The new Aviointeriors Skyrider 2.0 is a new, stand-up style seat that weighs 50% less than the traditional seat. This 50% of weight that is saved can be used for allowing more human bodyweight and less seat weight on the flights than before. These seats are said to allow up to 20% more passengers on the plane while also providing extra support to the person who is standing up the whole flight to offer them great posture so they are less stiff and sore when they land at their destination.

Shrinking the Seatbelts: Airlines have been long-accused of making seats too narrow for larger passengers to fit in but now one Thai airline is taking that a step further. Thai Airways International is taking the next step to limit the size passenger that it lets on a plane by making it so that their seatbelts don’t extend more than 56″ around the waist. They are also prohibiting infants and toddlers from riding on their parent’s laps forcing them to buy another seat to help fill flights. These controversial moves are aimed at both control the size the of the seats needed on airplanes and to also force people to buy a seat for every single body – literally!

Introducing Cargo Class: The new class might be an upgrade or a downgrade and that remains to be seen. Some airlines such as Airbus and Zodiac Aerospace are now proposing “berths” which are sleeping compartments that allow passengers to be stored on the underside of the plane. In the past, many people wouldn’t put their dog in the cargo compartment but now maybe humans are going into the cargo compartment ourselves! It remains to be seen how these designs come to be, but we may find out relatively soon considering some of these planes are to be flying possibly early as 2020.

Everyone Getting a Window Seat: Boeing’s new 787-10 is proposing making the windows on planes larger so that everyone can have a coveted window seat on a flight! These windows have grown 30% in size and will be dimmable by just pushing a button. These windows are being tested on new, ultra-long flights from Singapore to New Jersey which takes about 18 hours and 45 minutes. These first flights testing this idea area said to take off on October 11th!

Conclusion: These are just some of the ways that the future of the airplane seat will be ever-changing. As the airlines seek to cram more people onto their flights and maximize the profitability of their industry we are sure to see all kinds of new ideas come along. Seeing how well these ideas work, however, remains to be seen.