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]
posted April 17th 2007 10:50AM
btw, this is a terrible idea. It works in the BA business/first class cuz there's about a mile in between you and the seat next to/in front of you. Oh, and the seat is sorta enclosed from behind so that no matter how much the people around you recline, you'll always have basically the same amount of space to get out of a row and what-not (I just flew BA somewhat recently, so I remember this).
The whole "if two people recline, you can't get out from the window seat" thing is pretty much a deal breaker. Because with the distance between these rows, it WILL happen (Who's going to think in an emergency "oh no, the plane's on fire, I'd better put my seat up and then exit the airplane"). The only ways to avoid it are to increase the space between rows (which defeats the purpose) or to not allow reclining, or limit it to where it won't be a problem. But if you think that'll be acceptable to travelers, think about this. How many people willingly take the last row on an airplane? and how many like it?
I applaud their efforts to think "outside the box" so to speak, but this is really a stupid idea that will almost certainly be largely ignored.
Flying backwards is uncomfortable, sit in the rear facing seats at the front and you'll see. you strain your neck during takeoff and landing due to the angle of the plane.
Really? This is an improvement? Did they bag the idea where we all sit on seats full of razor blades, and then get splashed with iodine?
Weird.. I checked the date, and it's definitely not April 1st today.
I'd have no quams about flying in a tube so long as they knocked you out with some sleep gas like in 5th Element.
How about they just get rid of those dumb seats in the middle! Now that would actually deserve the name "Freedom."
that is the worst idea ever.
Just another excuse to make air travel more humiliating than it already is. First, they figured out how to overbook flights to gain money and bump people off to other overbooked flights. Then came 2001, and they decided to add "random" full body searches. And now, they are going to pack bodies into a plane to the extent that it feels you are flying in a hearse over the Atlantic, except there are 500 coffins instead of one, and the bodies inside them are alive.
Excuse me. Did not mean to add this comment a second time. If they are going to do anything about air travel, they should arrange the seats so that there are four seats placed around a circular table, and then repeated many times so that it almost seems that you are in a restraunt more than it seems that you are flying at 515 miles/hour.
I once rode on Southwest in a rear facing seat at the back of the plane...and it was HORRIBLE! During takeoff/landing you constantly feel like sliding off the seat. Even WORSE, when the plane is at cruising altitude, it is inclined a little, so you STILL feel like sliding off the seat!
Why don't they just knock us out, put us in a box and stack us up. They could fit thousands of people on a plane and make sheetloads of money. fricken jag offs.
Freedom is Slavery...
as for stacking sholders to make more space, couldn't they just stagger the center seat forward a bit with it still facing the same way as traditional aircraft seats? Then you wouldn't even need to share an armrest and you could cram more people in. (...not that i want it like that.) but seriously backwards??. reminds me of those old station wagon seats that would look backwards out the rear window. this design is kind of like what im thinking http://travelnewsblog.latimes.com/dailytraveler/images/eos_4.jpg ...but less perdy.
I don't know which is worse - the whole concept of this jam-in-more-bodies or that they call it "Freedom" - George Orwell's 1984 Doublespeak.
I forgot to add .... Rear facing seats are supposed to be much safer (so I understand), but extra strengthening that has to be put into the floor would cost the airlines too much, so they have been vehemently resisting rear facing seats.
Now they like the idea??
Should be OK as long as the rest of passengers are VS models ;)
Don't knock it just yet, people. Just think of all the interesting possibilities for all sorts of threesome/foursome scenarios, depending on the particular final configuration, right there in your seat in mid-air at breakneck speed. Welcome to the new Mile-High Voyeur Club.
*Rubbing hands* Hehee, can't wait.
what about people flying with children? i travel with 2 small kids all the time. i dont want them in a position where they are facing strangers but i also would have an issue reaching them if anything were to happen. i like being able to lift the arm rest and let him stretch out a bit and take a nap. what about the relatively empty flights where everyone takes their own row and stretches out and catches a nap that would never happen with this design so even if your row was empty you still wouldnt be able to get comfortable.