A new patent shows how airfares may one day depend on your girth
By A.W. | WASHINGTON, DC
LAST month, bemoaning the shrinking legroom on airplanes, an American congressman introduced a measure—on which Gulliver gloomily reported—to mandate a minimum amount of space for air passengers. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, pointed out that the average American man grew from 166lb (75kg) in 1960 to 190lb today, while the average woman jumped from 140lb to 166lb. Airline seats have meanwhile moved in the opposite direction. The average seat pitch has dropped from 35 inches (89cm) in the 1970s to 31 inches now, and the width of the typical seat has contracted from 18 inches to 16.5.
The measure failed, and airlines are showing no inclination toward roomier seats. Instead, they may turn to a different solution: making bigger passengers pay more to fly. Airbus, a European aerospace giant, has filed a patent application in America for a “re-configurable passenger bench seat":
In a first configuration of the passenger bench seat, the seatbelt system includes a first number of seatbelts which are detachably fastened to the fastening rail in first positions which are adapted to the first configuration of the passenger bench seat. In a second configuration of the passenger bench seat, on the other hand, the seatbelt system includes a second number of seatbelts which are detachably fastened to the fastening rail in second positions which are adapted to the second configuration of the passenger bench seat.
Allow Gulliver to translate the patentese here. The idea is that passengers would share a single bench, won’t be able to recline and may lose the armrests between them. The seat belts will be able to shift to accommodate passengers of varying widths. In other words, a slender passenger will be able to buy a normal ticket for the flight; if his neighbors are likewise slender, up to four of them will share a bench. A passenger of greater girth, however, would shell out extra for a wider seat configuration and would share the bench with fewer neighbours.
The immediate response to the patent application has not been favourable. Timedescribed the proposal as a “nightmarish” one “which might some day serve as a new CIA interrogation technique”. Business Insider, which first reported on the patent application, wrote that “such a plan would fall in line with the fare-rate system in place for the air-freight industry, which bills based on weight.” It is safe to say that passengers will not be thrilled at the notion of being considered in the same terms as steerage.
Families that can squeeze, say, two adults and two kids onto a bench built for three could be in for some savings, while the larger among us may need to brace, brace for heftier fares. But before any budget recalculations, Gulliver would like to offer the usual word of caution: this will probably never happen.
As Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst, explained to Wired, Airbus stockpiles a whole slew of patents that never see the light of day—including detachable cabins to assist with boarding and bunk-bed-style seating. Gulliver has also reported on an Airbus patent for “motorcycle-saddle” seats in short-haul cabins, and Boeing's application to patent a "transport vehicle upright sleep support system” (better characterised as "sleeping on the rope").
It would also take years for any of these radically different seating arrangements to pass the necessary tests proving their ability to withstand crashes and fire and to protect passengers from injury. Yet the shift to a new type of seating would be a marginal change in an industry that has seen plenty of transformative innovation, and no small amount of turmoil over the decades. Never say never—before you know it, you could find yourself detachably fastened to the fastening rail.
