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posted by cmn32480 on Friday July 10 2015, @05:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the crisco-and-a-shoehorn-to-get-more-in dept.

One of the few comforts we economy class fliers have left is our right to strap on noise-canceling headphones, stare at the back of the seat in front of us, and pretend we're on a beach, or at home, or in a modest-sized jail cell—anywhere, really.

Now that right is at risk. Zodiac Seats France, an industry supplier, has patented a new seating configuration that rips out the (horrid) middle seat in favor of one that faces the rear. With "Economy Class Cabin Hexagon," you get more neighbors than ever before—and they are right in your face.

The goal of the design is "to increase cabin density while also creating seat units that increase the space available at the shoulder and arm area." To be fair, it seems to do that—because you're no longer facing the same direction as your immediate neighbor, you have more shoulder room. And if you're traveling with your kid or spouse, being face-to-face can be nice (we guess).

Why not move to standing-room only, with roller-coaster style restraints?


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by N3Roaster on Friday July 10 2015, @09:57PM

    by N3Roaster (3860) <roaster@wilsonscoffee.com> on Friday July 10 2015, @09:57PM (#207661) Homepage Journal

    To answer a part of 2, hardly anybody pays for those first class seats. Quality of that class varies widely but the pricing is ridiculous. If the airline is lucky maybe one person goes for it. Instead, it's all free upgrades for people who fly a lot on that airline. In coach, a lot of planes these days have exactly two good seats. It's the window seat in the rear-most row of exit seating over the wing where there isn't a seat in the row in front of you. The seat is still narrow but the excessive leg room helps a lot and the seat doesn't cost any more than the others (and it's less than the "comfort" seating with some unnoticeable extra inches of leg room).

    International flights are better and some of the foreign airlines don't seem to be in a rush to discover the minimum acceptable level of service. Emirates, for example, had a fairly large guy (big and tall, not obese, I met him on a trip to Dubai a few years ago) sit in the seats to test out their spacing.

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