'Freedom' seating concept packs even more bodies onto the plane

When it comes to rethinking the cabin of your modern jumbo jet, innovations usually involve enhancing the travel experience by offering more leg room, better entertainment, tastier food, etc.; less popular, it seems, are attempts to minimize those few square feet of unprofitable breathing room by packing even more people into what already feels like a flying sardine tin. Well someone over at Acumen Design Associates and the Premium Aircraft Interior Group apparently lost the memo revealing that people prefer more personal space to less, because how else to explain the collaboration's "Freedom" seating concept, which crams in an extra column of rear-facing seats that force you to sit nearly eye-to-eye with your neighbor. This design -- to be presented at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg -- supposedly trumps current configurations by allowing travelers' shoulders to overlap, but which will probably only serve to create even more heated battles over the narrower armrests. In fact, the only advantage we see to practically sitting on top of the person next to us is that when in-flight cellphones are finally given the green light, it will be just a little easier to tell our loudmouth seat buddy to shut the h-e-double-hockey-sticks up.

[Via Core77]

[Splitty @ Apr 17th 2007 10:55AM]

Not to mention overlap from fat people... the growing population of overweight people always seem to be seated next to me... and on the armrest... and under the armrest...

[mentalsticks @ Apr 17th 2007 11:05AM]

I hereby take a solemn oath never to fly with any airline that introduces this.

[Matt @ Apr 17th 2007 4:11PM]

Glad I fly Southwest, the only airline that can turn a profit without resorting to inane shit like this.

[Grey Acumen @ Apr 17th 2007 11:06AM]

I like the idea, in terms of having the seats being staggered that way so that every other person is facing backwards, but I don't agree with the loss of space. I think if they didn't compact the space, but used this method, you could have the same number of people, but those people would feel 100x more comfortable. I also think this could greatly improved the perceived privacy.

But yeah, please don't make the seating even more compact than it already is.

[anonymous @ Apr 17th 2007 11:36AM]

@ Gray Acumen: you say two things I am rebutting.

'those people would feel 100x more comfortable'
how would changing the direction you faced make people feel 100x more comfortable? you are not gaining any space, only being forced to face one or two others. Most people do not like dealing with strangers and this only causes more stress.

'I also think this could greatly improved the perceived privacy'
in this configuration you would have even less privacy as there would be someone staring at you in the face for the entire flight or perverts gawking at others without any possible recourse for the gawked! This would only lead to flight rage!

[ph @ Apr 17th 2007 11:11AM]

I dont know about you, but I prefer someone digging my ribs with an elbow than someone staring at me for 8 hours...

[Metaridley @ Apr 17th 2007 11:13AM]

Bodies on a Plane!

That's what first came to mind when I saw the headline, anyway.

[Sam @ Apr 17th 2007 11:17AM]

Hells no.

[Joel @ Apr 17th 2007 11:18AM]

Ummmm just out of general curiosity when one person tries to make their seat recline does that mean the other person has to lean their seat forward? As those arm rests seem pretty well attached to each seat...

[Marco @ Apr 17th 2007 11:40AM]

Just think of the practicality of it guys? You can swing a right hook so much better when they're facing you!

[aeo @ Apr 17th 2007 11:21AM]

OMG this would suck. Could you imagine the snoring chain smoker falling asleep facing your direction? Mouth to face... ugh. Or how about the poor female passenger with some guy getting a great angle on her cleavage the entire flight?

[J @ Apr 17th 2007 11:56AM]

Interesting, there's usually a great shot from right next to the lady. ....I wouldn't know from experience. Uhhh.

[kuonji @ Apr 17th 2007 12:37PM]

If cleavage can be seen, the person chose clothes that meant for it to be seen.

[Lebeu @ Apr 17th 2007 5:48PM]

You know, if you're really lucky, with this you could stare 4 beautiful chix(and their cleavages) for the whole flight...but if you're one of those very unlucky sorts, you wouldn't want this :D

On a serious note, there isn't that much for ppl to adjust in this sort of design imho. Although the climb in a take off might be little wicked.

[Bollocks @ Apr 17th 2007 11:22AM]

"h-e-double-hockey-sticks"

Possibly the saddest thing I've ever seen written on Engadget. You can't write HELL now?

Perhaps I should just shut the eff-you-curly-cuh-kicking-kuh up before I offend someone!

[W. Shawn OSBORNE @ Apr 17th 2007 11:23AM]

Minor correction, it is not "shut the h-e-double-hockey-sticks up". It should read "switch the P from puck with a F up.

[jschek @ Apr 17th 2007 11:23AM]

Why not shrink the seats to fit your "average" travelver who is 5' 6" and 125 lbs. You can then put 5 seats where there used to be 3. Then you can increase revenue by labeling "normal" people as "passengers of size" and force them to buy a second seat.

And then to really show you how much they really love their customers, they would still force you to cram yourself into a single seat, even thought they charged you for two seats.... Oh... wait... they already do that to "passengers of size"...

And of course, after the airline get paid TWICE for my seat, they still force me to share half of it with the other passenger.

[Normal-sized skinny dude @ Apr 17th 2007 1:09PM]

"Passengers of size"? Bwahahaha!

[Grey Acumen @ Apr 17th 2007 11:56AM]

@anonymous

Two things you need to consider. First off, if you can cram in a full extra row of seats by having every other seat facing in the opposite direction, imagine how much extra space you would have if you simply DIDN'T ADD that extra row.

Second of all, you aren't face to face with the person, if you don't want to look at people 'gawking' at you, then just look at the back of the seat in front of you, they can do the same. I'm sure that's just so much worse than staring at the back of someone's head.


For other people that are talking about "Oh noes, ther gonna cough in ur face and star at ur b00bs!" just increase the size of that side flap along the head and you've instantly increased your privacy. It's not like the seat design has been completely finalized, this is about the concept of the seats being reversed to increase space

I will admit that reclining could be an issue, but I don't see it being anymore of an issue than it already is.

[anonymous @ Apr 17th 2007 11:39AM]

excuse me sir, please stop staring at me!

I'm not staring at you, I'm staring at your head rest.

[mastershake @ Apr 17th 2007 11:41AM]

What's next! When I was Airborne, we sat in two rows facing each other with our legs interlocked ie my right knee in your crotch My left knee in your neighbor's, one of his in mine etc. then our "luggage" went in our laps. if you needed to pee you had to walk on heads, or balance on the bar that ran down the back of two rows. But we could fit a lot of people! Mind you none of them were as fat as the current average person.

[anonymous @ Apr 17th 2007 11:41AM]

these would be great for lovers flights, would promote easy fondling.


...and elsewhere in the world, the rumored 'Mile High Club' has increased its membership by 2,500,000 this year. News at 11

[Watsonr @ Apr 17th 2007 11:45AM]

If the person in the middle seat reclines and the person on the aisle reclines, there is no way the person by the window would have a chance of getting out to use the facilities.

[mg @ Apr 17th 2007 11:53AM]

This is why the seating would never make it into an aircraft: not only does it block access to facilities, but in the event of an emergency, the person seated at the window would not be able to exit the plane effectively, and this is a substantial dealbreaker preventing this type of seating from ever taking off.

[William @ Apr 17th 2007 11:50AM]

Imagine the puke factor!! facing backwards, : )

[Mattso @ Apr 17th 2007 11:50AM]

...and you know there would end up being tons of confusion over which row you are actually supposed to be seated in.

-"No, that's row D. You are in row C."

-"But my seat faces backward in row C, so I need to enter in row D."

[zoara @ Apr 17th 2007 8:00PM]

mg: "taking off". Hur.

[Darwin @ Apr 17th 2007 12:25PM]

They're not talking about cramming in an extra ROW. It's a whole COLUMN. On a jumbo jet, you're easily talking 50 more seats.

Side-by-side privacy issues could easily be mitigated with a good barrier design, but upskirting will still be a problem.

Then there's the issue of getting OUT of the middle row: normally, you get up and pass at the knees, here you get up and straddle your neighbor. And if everyone around you is reclined, you are trapped. This is literally a killer during evacuation.

Having 3 seats isn't a solution, either, because jumbo jets are usually 3-4-3, making 10 columns. How do you split 11 columns with 3? adding an extra aisle messes with food and bev service.

I would think that simply having a slight arrow formation to the rows would be the best bet.

[Asten @ Apr 17th 2007 11:58AM]

British Airways' 747 Business Class does have the reversed seats, but obviously there's a lot more space involved. However, the face to face thing is still there, as there's a little divider that can be extended between the seats. It was a number of years ago so I can't recall how the entry/exit was set up.

[kuzu-b @ Apr 17th 2007 12:10PM]

Do you all not see the flaps on the sides of the headrest? You can't see the face of the person sitting next to you. I don't like the idea either, but don't knock it for something that's not even an issue. Knock it for the million others reasons this is a bad idea.

[Mick O @ Apr 17th 2007 12:15PM]

Whoever designed this is clearly rich enough to fly first class everywhere.

Think about that for a sec and you will get very depressed.

[Frankenstein Black @ Apr 17th 2007 1:10PM]

EXACTLY! They will be flying like this
http://www.luxurytravelsource.com/sleeper-seat.html
while us schlubs are cramped up, and now face to face no less!

[Chris K. @ Apr 17th 2007 12:17PM]

This would be great when flying with your spouse/significant other, in that you can talk while facing one another without contorting yourself too much. (Unless you can't stand each other, in which case, you're screwed.)

In general, though, I don't want to face other passengers. I don't want to talk to them, and I don't want to fight over armrests with them. I also don't want to have to hop over a leaned-back seat in one direction, then the other, or be forcibly wedged into the existing seats at all times. At least with the current seating arrangement, you and your SO can flip up the armrest and share two seats more comfortably, which works out great when you both hit average to slightly-below-average space requirements, and the third person in the row exceeds that limit.

[Lynn @ Apr 17th 2007 12:22PM]

Doesn't seem very well thought-out to me. You just can't deny that it's really going to be weird facing the person beside you. Which might lead to staring. Which might lead to people lashing out and saying, "Will you stop looking at me?" That, or it might promote closeness and friendship among passengers. Aha, maybe that's the ultimate goal.

[Grey Acumen @ Apr 17th 2007 12:52PM]

sorry, column, I had caught that before posting, but figured people would know what I meant.

anyway. as far as the 3 - 4 - 3 thing, it's pretty simple. normally seats would be done like this:

VVV||VVVV||VVV

Now they're done like this:

VAV||AVAV||AVA

tada, not exactly complicated. Now if you're asking how would you arrange it for if you actually added in that extra column that they're talking about? that's simple too, you just shift your aisles slightly:
VAV||AVAVA||VAV

See, you have 5 seats in the middle, when it comes to serving the person in the middle of the plane, it wouldn't be any harder than serving someone at a window seat.

I too am curious about the reclining issue. Then again, that assumes that you can recline far enough to obstruct the aisle. This design may limit you from doing that.

[Darwin @ Apr 17th 2007 1:01PM]

I like your drawing. But I don't buy the 5 column arrangement. It is just too isolated. You are probably right, however.

[jason @ Apr 17th 2007 12:25PM]

Has anyone here been on a train with fixed back seats? Basically half the seats face one direction while the other half face the other. If you get one of those seats where your back is facing the direction that the train is moving, it's an odd feeling. Imagine what that would feel like on a plane going 500 mph. What about take off and landing. If you are facing backwards you're going to be dangling from your seat belt on take off.

[Jeff @ Apr 17th 2007 12:57PM]

"Has anyone here been on a train with fixed back seats? Basically half the seats face one direction while the other half face the other. If you get one of those seats where your back is facing the direction that the train is moving, it's an odd feeling."

Lots of people ride trains like that every single day, including me. The Long Island Rail Road, the largest commuter train line in the entire nation, has 100% of their trains outfitted this way. There's nothing odd about it unless you're not used to it. I'm sure *if* these airplane seats became standard, people would get used to it.

That's the least of the design's problems, though. I'm shocked (though maybe I shouldn't be) that nobody seems to have mentioned how much this would suck if you were traveling with somebody else. I mean the privacy problems are one thing, but imagine the opposite - imagine if you *don't* want privacy from who you're sitting with. It would suck to have to sit facing the opposite direction from your wife or especially children. Just think about some rambunctious little kid, whose parents are forced to face the opposite way. There would *at least* need to be a full section of traditional facing seats for families and non-solo travelers, limiting the amount of extra seats you could cram in with this design, and potentially resulting in an unbalanced airplane (if you get more of one type of flier than another on a particular flight). That would end up forcing people to sit in one section or the other, which isn't going to be pleasant.

This is really a practically unworkable design for a bunch of reasons. Flying backwards is not really one of them (in fact it's safer in the event of an accident), but facing different directions than the people you're with is.

[Grey Acumen @ Apr 17th 2007 12:59PM]

I'm not quite getting the point here. Okay, so you accelerate to 500mph as you're taking off. Then when you land, you decelerate back to 0. If you're facing backwards, you'd just have these switched. It would feel the same as landing when you were taking off, and it would feel the same as taking off when you were landing. Admitedly, it might be a little weird, but hardly a life altering experience.

And they do tell you to wear your seatbelt during takeoff and landing.

[ben @ Apr 17th 2007 1:15PM]

"I'm not quite getting the point here. Okay, so you accelerate to 500mph as you're taking off. Then when you land, you decelerate back to 0. If you're facing backwards, you'd just have these switched. It would feel the same as landing when you were taking off, and it would feel the same as taking off when you were landing. Admitedly, it might be a little weird, but hardly a life altering experience.

And they do tell you to wear your seatbelt during takeoff and landing."

not exactly. I'd hate to be facing backwards on a flight out of John Wayne ... because of sound ordinances, the approach in is way different than going out.

[Aaron @ Apr 17th 2007 1:30PM]

The feeling wouldn't quite be switched... When landing, you're slowing down, so it doesn't exactly feel like you're going to go flying out of your seat. The size of the plane helps with that, too. But when taking off you go faster and faster until you're up in the air, so it seems like you'd slowly be pushed harder against the seatbelt, which will still only be a belt (as opposed to the harness thing that the flight attendants have in their backwards-facing seats). And then there's the fact that since the plane goes up, you'd be facing down...

I think taking off would be pretty uncomfortable with this setup. I somehow doubt this configuration will take off.

(pun intended)

[Jason @ Apr 17th 2007 1:08PM]

I hate reclining at all on a flight. It's great fun to have your knees crushed in because the moron in front of you needed to tip his chair back 10 degrees.

[Z @ Apr 17th 2007 1:26PM]

I'm sorry, but after reading what this seating arrangement is all about and looking carefully at that photo, it's clear that whoever came up with this absurd seating concept has a family tree that does not fork.

Who in their right mind would want to sit with some guy staring back at them like that? Yeah, that'll do WONDERS for privacy, peace of mind, and conversation. Yuk.

So every time the person facing you sneezes, or coughs, or burps, or blows their nose, or clears their throat, or smacks when they eat their food or chew gum, or falls asleep and snores with their head turned your direction, you'll get a nice face full of all that crap. And trust me, although it can be bad enough with how things are right now, it would be MUCH worse if the seating arrangement followed this idiotic pattern. Now imagine if that person (people) facing you were kids.

Note to airlines: If you want more seating capacity, BUILD A BIGGER FREAKING PLANE!

Any airline that introduces this seating arrangement, won't get a penny of my money. Guaranteed.

[t-bone @ Apr 17th 2007 1:43PM]

I clearly differ in my opinion here: I would rather face someone than have them sitting next to me looking at whatever I'm reading. Besides, it looks like everybody's heads are going to be farther apart, too. Taking off backwards might be a little weird, but I'll do it. This design does have some problems, as pointed out by other readers.

[Archietype @ Apr 17th 2007 1:56PM]

Firstly it seems really awkward to get in and out of seat rows like that, and the only solution I can think of is to increase the space between seats which completely negates the point of such a tightly packed configuration.

Secondly, it effectively creates a whole plane of solo flyers, because communication between groups of passengers is reduced due to the privacy headrests. I'm sure they could work round this somehow by having them fold round the back of the seat, but it seems that something like this would create a myriad of problems which need more inventive solutions. Lets hope this idea gets laughed out of the expo and never comes up again.

[TIMMAH! @ Apr 17th 2007 2:02PM]

"Do you all not see the flaps on the sides of the headrest? You can't see the face of the person sitting next to you. I don't like the idea either, but don't knock it for something that's not even an issue. Knock it for the million others reasons this is a bad idea."

Yeah nice horse blinders, but what about the snotty little screaming kid that's too short to be covered by the blinders?


"If cleavage can be seen, the person chose clothes that meant for it to be seen."

Yeah cleavage is like the 8th wonder of the world. Definitely something to be seen and admired.

Okay here's a idea (and you heard it here first, so I get royalties or at least aprior art credit.) Why not make use of all that wasted airspace above the passengers as well by putting in banks of tubes like they have in the japanese micro-hotels. Everyone gets their little cocoon in the hive and can sleep in comfort and breath their own air (meals might be a bit tricky though... I guess you'd have to eat lying on your stomach.) If they made the tubes strong enough, this could also be a safety feature so that any on-board explosions could be contained in the terrorist's tube.

[MasterCKO @ Apr 17th 2007 2:05PM]

haha, that's a great idea. 8^) I wonder why Japanese domestic flights haven't adopted it yet. 8^P

[t-bone @ Apr 17th 2007 4:29PM]

If they could put a window at the end of every tube to you could see outside the plane I would fly in one. Think about it: they could put the same amount of people in a smaller space and use the extra space for a place to eat. I do see one problem with this, though. It seems like it would take much longer to clean the cabin between flights. That means less time in the air with paying passengers. Then again, once you get off, whole sections of tubes could be quickly replaced with clean ones and the dirty ones serviced elsewhere. This might mean less time on the ground and more flights per plane. Either way, I'd fly in my own personal and private tube.

[TIMMAH! @ Apr 17th 2007 5:32PM]

Hmmm... yeah, but how do you turn around in your tube to see out the window? I'd assume the food/beverage service would have to take place on the opposite end.

[MasterCKO @ Apr 17th 2007 2:16PM]

oh, my first comment was directed at TIMMAH! and my second is about the original entry