Window seat, aisle or back-to-front?

Source: The Time
Author: Ben Webster

Airline passengers may be required to sit facing the rear of the aircraft by a new seating layout designed to pack more people in as well as giving everyone more legroom. Ten airlines, including one British carrier, are considering turning half their economy-class seats to face the opposite way to the other half to squeeze in an extra column of seats along the aircraft.

Airlines could add up to 50 seats to each aircraft and increase the seat pitch, the gap between one seat and the seat in front, by four inches (10cm). But they would have to persuade passengers to spend up to 15 hours facing the back of the aircraft and trying to avoid eye contact with passengers facing the other way. People in the rear-facing seats would have a slightly greater chance of surviving a crash landing.

The “yin-yang” seating formation has been developed by a British company and is being unveiled this week at an exhibition in Hamburg.

The Premium Aircraft Interiors Group (PAIG), which has been designing aircraft seats since 1933, has developed rear-facing seats for the British Airways business-class cabin. It has produced an economy-class layout in which neighbouring seats face in opposite directions.

The traditional seating layout is constrained by people sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. This typically means leaving a two-inch gap between seats for an armrest. Under the new layout, one person’s shoulders would be alongside his neighbour’s knees, removing a gap.

By saving on the armrest space an extra seat could be fitted in each row. A Boeing 777 could have ten-abreast seating instead of nine-abreast, allowing an extra 21 seats. A double-deck Airbus A380 could have 50 more seats. Boeing and Airbus have approved the design and PAIG is negotiating with ten potential customers.

Ben Bettell, the company’s development director, said that the layout would increase the economy-class seat pitch on long-haul flights from 32 to 34 inches. “It also ends the battle of elbows for that sweetspot on the armrest and you can use your laptop without people peering over your shoulder.”

He admitted that tests had shown that some passengers might feel uncomfortable with being able to establish eye contact with neighbours. So the company has added a privacy screen at eye level that is pulled out from the seat in front.

Mr Bettell said: “For a small loss of personal privacy you get a big gain in personal space. Parents will welcome it because they will be able to face their children.”

BA said that rear-facing seats were popular in business class and it would consider them for economy passengers.

David Learmount, safety editor of Flight International magazine, said the RAF used rear-facing seats on its passenger aircraft because they were believed to be safer. Rather than being thrown forward in a crash, people facing the rear are pressed back into their seats.

“The RAF can order personnel to travel this way but airlines have to keep passengers happy and the tradition has developed of having seats facing forward.”

Malcolm Ginsberg, editor of Air & Business Travel News, said: “Passengers will be suspicious that this is just another way for airlines to squeeze more people in and make more money. But an airline seeking to take a lead by doing something different might pioneer it. I can imagine one of the A380 customers taking a brave leap.”