Airbus designs bench seat for obese flyers

Airplane patents have considered some alarming ideas over the years – like passenger stacking and a weird bicycle-seat-style system that looks like it would cause some unfortunate natural selection.

In the latest travel news, the company announced that it is looking for a way to make travel more comfortable for overweight passengers by replacing individual chairs with single, wide benches. This will give the carrier freedom to organize its passengers as it sees fit, and will also cater to those who are limited in mobility.

The obesity crisis has been a hot topic in the flight industry, with some smaller airlines charging passengers by their weight and others adding larger seats.

It’s fair to say this first image looks pretty unspectacular, showing as it does two large adults side by side, with a smaller-than-usual armrest between them.

“In means of transportation, in particular in a cabin of an aircraft, stowage and/or storage space is usually rather restricted and scarce”, Airbus said, according to the Daily Mail. Seats in commercial aircraft must be able to withstand a forward force of 16Gs without breaking-the test that measures that decelerates a dummy-loaded row of seats from 44 feet per second to a dead stop in under a tenth of a second. Do you think there could be advantages to bench seating? In another, it accommodates larger people, or people with certain disabilities who need more room.

There are potential problems. That includes senior citizens and overweight passengers, but also means the seating could squeeze in extra little people if required.

“Finally, in its third configuration, the passenger bench seat is particularly well suited to use by families with small children since, in its third configuration, the passenger bench seat offers sufficient space for two adults and also for two small children sitting, for example, between the two adults”.