- Think airplane seating
couldn't get worse?
- Well, then you've underestimated
- the human imagination.
(upbeat music)
Human flight, to think every day
eight million people are lifted aloft
by iron arms and ferried
to far flung locales
to meet their destinies.
It's an amazing engineering feat,
and we should celebrate this ingenuity
of the human spirit.
Except for one thing.
Once you step inside the modern marvel
that is the airplane,
awe and wonder give way to
disappointing cramped quarters
and a number of unpleasant variables
like delays, droolers, over sharers,
and seat kicking toddlers.
Now imagine a future where
this happens vertically,
with kicking toddlers suspended above you.
Because Airbus recently filed a patent
to do just this.
But before we entertain that scenario,
let's look at the present.
16.5 inches, that's all the room
your butt gets these days.
Which is a 2.5 inch
decrease from years past.
All in an effort to cram more seats in.
In fact, the International
Air Transport Association
is expecting a 29.3 million net profit
up from 16.4 billion in 2014.
This is due in part to
increased air travel demand,
but also record load factors,
aka stuffing in as much human livestock
as possible.
But, we're mostly okay with this, right?
We've reached a point of acceptance
and we've leveled out our expectations.
We get it, airplane travel for the masses
is uncomfortable.
And surely it couldn't get worse.
Oh yes, it can.
- And don't call me Shirley.
- [Voiceover] Behold, the economy class
cabin hexagon, a patent filed
by Zodiac Seats France
on June 11th 2015.
It features a three seat configuration
with two seats facing the back
of the cabin and the middle seat
facing the front.
Sure, you gain some shoulder room,
but in exchange, all three of you
get to stare at one another
for the duration of the flight.
Not awkward at all.
At least no one's sitting above your head.
But wait, they could be because
on September 30th 2015,
Airbus filed a patent
for stacking passengers.
Or, in their much more elegant parlance,
an elevated deck structure providing
a mezzanine seating area
in a substantially unused upper load
of the air craft fuselage.
The patent allows for more than one seat
to be suspended above you,
so that spacious looking cabin
could be chockablock with humans.
Also, how would you feel about being
downwind from the seat above you?
Sure, charcoal filtered
seat cushions absorb
some of the blow of human flatuence,
but not all of it.
But take comfort, these diabolical
configurations may never come to pass.
Nor are you sitting in
the Ypsilanti Wicker.
That's just some porch furniture
that PanAm threw on its flights
in the 20s and 30s in case
anyone needed a lift with a mail carrier.
Hello there ladies and gentlemen,
we're flying at an
altitude of 20,000 feet.
Right about now is the
time for me to remind you
to check back daily at now
dot how stuff works dot com
and subscribe for more high flying times.
