We have been discussing the race to the bottom in airlines in the treatment of passengers from endless special charges to the elimination of every possible convenience or comfort. As I fly back to Washington this morning, I thought I would share the latest vision of the industry to stuff more people into planes by stacking them like kindling. It would seem that airlines may have to change their standard warning about luggage shifting in overhead bins to alert passengers to the danger of failing passengers who shifted during flights.
Ironically, I previously speculated how the trend in airlines seems to be toward stacking passengers. Well welcome to Airbus’ vision of human luggage. An Airbus patent application allows for seating arrangements with passengers riding atop each other with one seat “arranged at a first lower level,” and “at least” one other seat above on an “elevated level.”
The application states:
In modern means of transport, in particular in aircraft, it is very important from an economic point of view to make optimum use of the available space in a passenger cabin. Passenger cabins are therefore fitted with as many rows of passenger seats as possible, which are positioned with as little space between them as possible. In order to still more efficiently use the space in a passenger cabin of an aircraft, US 4,066,227 proposes an elevated deck structure on a main deck floor in the passenger cabin of a wide-body aircraft for providing a mezzanine seating area in a substantially unused upper lobe of the aircraft fuselage.
The images bring to mind some other images from the “middle passage.”
Thank god I’m not the only one who thought that when seeing that patent application!
I believe that Airbus Industrie was formed as a result of a government initiative among France, Germany and the UK.
Well, that will be just grand when the top passengers get air sick or a child drops his food. And what about exiting the plane in a hurry, such as in an accident?
Although Airbus filed for the design, Airbus, Boeing and others don’t configure the seating or actually purchase the seats…the individual airlines do that. Boeing et al will place any seat-set in any configuration desired by the carriers or lessors as long as the seat and configuration meet applicable regulations. Not sure such a patent requires a country’s (region—FAA or EU) aviation regulatory endorsement.
By the way, some foreign “regional” airlines use stand-up subway style straps, some allow plastic un-anchored chairs and animals being taken to market amongst passengers. Of course, none of these are allowed in the likes of countries with FAA/EU standards. Unless it has recently changed, Russian built airliners are not allowed into US airspace as part of regular passenger service. They are non-compliant with FAA and, I believe, EU requirements and standards.
This is typical for the French made Airbus. They hate pilots by having the plane tell pilots what to do and not letting them cross control the aircraft to compensate for cross wind landings. It is a poor airplane. Right up there with the Jetstream, but at least the Jetstream is a real airplane, not a flying computer.
So the bottom line is you don’t have to fly an airline that uses airbuses or have to fly at all
When will some folks put a bounty on that dumb dentist? “Dumb dentist” is kind of like “dumb smoker”, a redundancy. We could find some country which would accept and hold the bounty n a bank and then when the dentist has been shot and all his teeth pulled the shooter can go to that pirate territory and pick up his money. I would say something like Two Hundred Thousand would be enough to inspire interest. The teeth could then be shipped to Africa and put on display in a museum dedicated to dead lions, tigers, elephants and their human killers.
When do we get to “Beam me up, Scotty.”
Bill H – sometimes it is better to shame the patent into oblivion before it goes into production. 🙂
Just to correct the record; Airbus merely filed for a patent, as they have done for tens of thousands of other ideas which they have come up with. They did not file for approval from the FAA to actually implement this thing, nor did they announce any intendion of doing so. I do not have any actual statistics at hand, but a very small fraction of patent applications ever actually make it into production. The hyperventilation about this in the media is more than a little bit silly.
Pharoh’s revenge?
The first international flight I ever took was on a gargantuan plane from Paris. There was so much space that they had a station in the front of second class where you could stand up and get coffee and danish and hang out. They also had a stairway up to the second level. It was like flying in a hotel. I’m glad my traveling days are over.
Down here in New Orleans they have some guy whose name is Choice Not An Echo. I saw that phrase on the blog here and wonder where it comes from in your culture or politics. In the world though, you humans have choices to make. Choosing an air plane ride seems to be of critical mass. You folks go to Mass at some Catholic Church then cross your eyes and get on some plane that you know little about. They stack you worse than they did at Mass.
I hate TSA so I am giving up on flying. However, I will keep in mind this stacking sequence, it might come in handy for storage here at home.
Hop on the bus, Gus.
Throw away the key Lee.
How about having passengers lie prone or supine in a box roughly the size of a shower stall or casket. Uniform dimensions would make stacking simple with near optimal use of the available space. Airliners would become, in effect, container ships for human bodies.
The boxes could be far more comfortable than today’s claustrophobic seating. Further, armored, insulated boxes with independent air supply could make evacuation during an emergency a thing of the past. Passengers could watch their favorite TV program while awaiting the arrival of emergency crews to unstack the boxes.
The only problem is that mile high sex will no longer be the spontaneous wonder it once was and will require a bit more planning.
Should make farts more interesting
It strikes me that the near-impossibility of evacuating one of these proposed arrangements in an emergency would (or should) prevent the manufacturer and the airline from getting the necessary safety certifications to fly such a plane commercially.
Airbus, did you say? No surprise here. Pardon my insult to those of you with German heritage, the Germans, along with their infamous ingenuity and knack for engineering, have a long history of treating people like disposable objects, cramming them into boxcars, where the cars were so full that it was impossible to sit, all in an effort to be ship as many as possible to death camps. That same pursuit , seeking efficiency, at all costs, is still being witnessed with these designs.
Would NOT want to be under someone who gets air sick!!!
Yes, when I saw that drawing, the first thing that came to mind for me also was the “Middle Passage” !