Airbus considering standing-room-only airline seats

Airbus considering standing-room-only airline seats, report says
If you think legroom is bad now, then get ready for “standing-room only” seating. The New York Times (free registration) writes that “Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.” One proposal apparently involves Airbus' A380 model, which will be the world’s largest commercial jet when it enters service in the coming years. A “typical configuration” calls for the jet to seat about 500 passengers, but that number could balloon to 853 with standing-room-only seats. (Check out the Times' website to see their graphic showing what such seats could look like.)

"To call it a seat would be misleading," says Volker Mellert, a physics professor at Oldenburg University in Germany, who has studied airline seat comfort and has seen the proposed standing-room-only design. He says that if any airlines ever decided to use such a “seating” configuration, it would most-likely be used only on short-haul flights in densely populated areas like Japan. The Times says an Airbus spokeswoman “played down the idea that Airbus was trying to sell an aircraft that accommodated 853 passengers,” though she would not comment on the “upright-seating proposal.” Would such seats fly in the USA? Apparently, it would be possible. According to the Times, the Federal Aviation Administration requires that passengers only be “secured” for takeoff and landing, but not necessarily “in a sitting position.”

Would you ever consider buying a "standing-room-only" ticket? Is this a good idea, or a recipe for disaster? Share your thoughts with other Today in the Sky readers.