Airplane Design Would Seat Passengers Face-To-Face
Runway Girl reports that UK-based consultancy Design Q has unveiled a new seating design for planes that would have passengers facing each other.
Are you an airline that wants to offer high-density configurations on short-haul flights but doesn't want the media circus - and logistical headaches - of installing/certifying vertical seats? Well then premier UK-based consultancy Design Q may just have the answer for you.
The company, which was instrumental in the design of Virgin Atlantic's acclaimed "Upper Class" seats, envisages a solution that entails a row of inward facing seats on each side of the aircraft plus two back-to-back rows down the middle resulting in a configuration whereby passengers are facing each other.
The military does use this seating configuration (see here) but it doesn't look like it would work for commercial flights. Commercial flights are different. They include business passengers who need room to read and use a laptop. They include easily bored children who need to be entertained and crying babies that need to be taken care of. And as Jaunted notes, we don't like having to interact with other passengers when we are on a plane and we don't want to have to face them directly for hours and hours. The current type of seating arrangement at least offers a little more privacy. We also don't see any room for passengers' bags in that concept design - maybe passengers aren't allowed to have them.
