2009's Most Ridiculous Airline Idea Is...
2009 was the year that we opened up an entire Bad Ideas category, a kind of formal spinoff of our Ryanair coverage. Of course the vast majority of this years Most Ridiculous Airline Ideas, from pee fees to airplane handrails, still came from the antipathy-generating Irish LCC. And yet none of Ryanair's cost-cutting innovations incensed you or us the way that Design Q's face-to-face airplane seat layout did.
The new interior configuration, a "high density seating" scheme designed to cram ever more passengers into ever smaller spaces, calls for "a row of seats facing inward on each side of the plane and two rows running back-to-back down the middle of the aircraft." Over a dozen Jaunted commenters worked several days to describe just how awkward, unsafe, awkward, physically uncomfortable, and really awkward it would be to stare at a stranger for hours upon hours at a time. Comment titles ranged from "OH NO!" to "Bad idea" to "NO GOOD" to "Awesome!" (that last one, not so serious). Above and beyond the plan's grade-school seating chart ethos, legitimate safety concerns were raised about feet blocking aisles and bodies getting jostled side-to-side.
Given the nearly unanimous "you've got to be effing kidding" response from the Jaunted community, you'll be happy to know that Design Q will be testing the new layout any day now. An October press release described this month as the target date for crash simulations, and honestly we can't wait to hear the results. The only thing left is to declare that the new design doesn't allow you to access your carryons and has no room for blankets, because honestly what do you need those for?
[Photo: Design Q via Flight Global]
Related Stories:
· New Airplane Design Proposes Seating Passengers Face-To-Face [Jaunted]
· All 2009 Travel Award stories [Jaunted]
· Jaunty winners for 2008 [Jaunted]
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