At least you get a seat

By B.R.

THIS blog sometimes laments that air passengers get what they deserve. Or, more accurately, they get what they are prepared to pay for, which is usually as little as possible. It is the reason why Spirit Airlines, despite being far-and-away America's most complained about airline, is also its most profitable. And why Ryanair, whose boss, Michael O’Leary, takes public pleasure in making its passengers’ lives miserable (“Anyone who looks like sleeping, we wake them up to sell them things”) is Europe’s second largest carrier. The more passengers prioritise the cost of a flight over service, the more the industry will give them what they want.

As yet airlines are not, to Mr O’Leary’s chagrin, allowed standing sections on their planes. So it should be of little surprise that Airbus has applied for a patent for the next-most bovine configuration: a “motorcycle saddle” for short-haul cabins.

Airbus’s patent says that traditional seats cannot be narrowed any further, or the pitch reduced much more, in order to accommodate extra passengers. Therefore, carriers will have to redesign the seats if they want to cram in more flyers. Its suggestion is a fold-down saddle, a small backrest and a couple of retractable armrests. Certainly no tray-tables, underseat storage or pockets to keep your sick bag in. This, it reckons, will allow airlines to wedge a third more people on to a plane—that’s an extra 63 passengers on one of Ryanair’s Boeing 737-800s. It would only be for flights lasting "a few hours" but judging by the pictures in the patent application (above), it doesn’t look like a fun ride.

The simple truth is that the distance between the front and the back of the plane is stretching by the month. Airbus has no plans to roll the seats out just yet, but it is telling that just as Etihad introduces “three-room residences” and butlers for its first-class passengers, the future for rest of us could be a bike saddle. Unless, that is, we are prepared to pay for a little bit of comfort. But we all know the answer to that.