Every now and then I feel like we report on some new, fresh, crispy hell relating to how airlines plan to shove as many people as possible into a given volume of space on an airplane, and so far, thankfully, the worst of these avaricious torture implements of skinflintery have yet to be actually implemented on a commercial aircraft. But the threats keep coming, most recently in the form of some genuinely miserable-looking “standing only” airplane seats that some budget airlines have said they’ll implement starting in 2026, which, if current thinking on calendar-based math proves true, will be “next year.”
News outlets reporting on theses seats, which were first seen back in 2018 at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, don’t seem to be specifying exactly which airlines are signing up to use these, which makes me a bit skeptical, because if these airlines have announced that they’re doing this, you’d think the articles would mention which ones they are, which so far I have yet to see.
Well, that’s not entirely true; the Irish famously cheap airline Ryanair has been vocal about wanting such standing-only seats, with their CEO expressing a desire to see his planes fitted with such non-seats since 2012. So I guess they’re on board with this, at least.
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Instagram accounts like this one have suggested that these seats have passed regulatory requirements and passed safety evaluations, leading to the spattering of articles suggesting that these things may actually show up in planes human beings may willingly get on.
Let’s take a look at these un-seats, which are officially called Skyrider 3.0:
They’re sort of a saddle/straddle design, and I guess they at least allow you to lean on the back even if you’re not really in a sitting position. You have some armrests and a seatbelt, at least. The upright design allows for about 30% more seats to be crammed into a given area, and the seats weigh about half of what a conventional economy airline seat weighs, which can provide fuel savings.
There are other mitigating factors at play here: the airplane still needs enough flight attendants to serve all the people on the plane, there still need to be enough emergency exits for all passengers onboard, and the passengers will still need to be able to evacuate the plane in 90 seconds.
Perhaps these seats really have passed all safety checks, but it’s hard to see how rows this close together will allow for passengers of the broad spectrum of sizes human beings come in to be able to evacuate in a hurry. But, if it’s true that safety regulations were, in fact, met, then I guess someone tested this?
For a short flight of an hour or so, maybe these wouldn’t be too bad? And if fares for these kinds of seats were cheap, like dirt cheap, then maybe these are not a bad thing? A $20 flight, or even less? That’s hard to argue with.
That said, these do seem miserable, and if your plane is delayed on the tarmac or anything like that, you could end up strapped to this lightly-padded nightmare for who knows how long. Is cramming as many people as possible into a plane to maximize profits an inherently inhumane act? Probably.
But still, spending maybe $30 or so to go round-trip to spend an evening in some random city you couldn’t drive to in time? That’s kind of appealing.
I have a very hard time understanding how an airline could install these seats and still comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act in the USA. Also, what about children? These seem to be a one-size-fits-all design that limits the design prototype to an “average” human adult.
At any rate, fuck any airline that installs these. I won’t be flying them.
Apart from the obvious comfort and potential safety issues, another issue I see with this is the sheer number of Americans that can’t stand for extended periods of time. How many people will book without reading that it’s a standing seat (just seeing that it’s cheap af), get there and realize it’s a standing seat, decide to chance it only to have a medical emergency mid-flight?
Not to mention I don’t believe for a second these are actually safe. What is the seatbelt design? Remember that plane that flipped on the runway a few months ago? Everyone survived in large tanks to the fact that they were all wearing seatbelts and didn’t fly out of their seats. If you’re already in a mostly standing position it seems far more likely a seatbelt wouldn’t hold you in unless it was uncomfortably tight.
Whoever came up with this idea should be forced to use one of these “Seats” instead of actually sitting no-matter where they are or what their doing. Including using the toilet.
Any airline that does this can just f@$k right off.
Put the damn things in SUV’s and busses – that way people will hate them more, and hopefully they go extinct
I am continually amazed how fresh and original Jason’s writing is. I can usually tell via some amusing and surprising turn of phrase within the first half sentence that I’m in for a Torchinsky Treat… In this case, simply adding the word “crispy” to an otherwise tired and common as weeds saying that freshens it up and makes it much more tangible and amusing. The content, subject matter, etc. notwithstanding (not that there’s anything wrong with any of it, it’s just that I feel he’d make reading a poor translation of Heidegger bearable) Jason is just an excellent writer. I felt that needed to be said.
Echo that. I haven’t come across the term skinflint that I can recall since high school Spanish class when it was the translation for tacana (there’s one of those squigly accents above the n but I’ll be damned if I had some way of typing it) which iirc also had some sort of gesture where you tapped your elbow associated with it. I suppose spendthrift might also work?
This will never happen. No one is going to pick it for long ocean flights and short trips that might make sense would open them up to competition from trains especially in Europe and Asia.
Anyone who’s sat in Spirit seating – anything other than the “Big Comfy Chairs”- recognizes this all too well. I refer to their standard seating as akin to the rower’s bench on a Roman galley. They will 100% have these saddles on their planes.
However, I flew Spirit last week for a two hour flight- it was half the price of a legacy carrier after all the add ins (I bought the upgraded seat that had no one sitting in the middle). Two hours and under is my limit with them and, for hops like that, it’s tolerable. But I see their cross country and foreign flights and can imagine a torture no worse.
Came here to check if spirit was mentioned
Spirit Airlines: The school bus of the skies.
I think this is less about cost-saving and more of an experiment to see how much dignity people are willing to lose…
Hell no, that thing, can’t really call it a seat, will put both of my legs asleep in minutes and that would be bad in an emergency and also miserable for any length of flight.
I fear the boiling frog approach: intro these first on bottom rung carriers, slowly get prices back up to wherever they were with “normal” seats, then expand standing seats everywhere they can. Delta’s Economy Plus bullshit is a perfect example of this, selling literally the same seat and knee room as prepandemic for far more money while main is just more miserable. They are not selling well though so let’s all vote with our wallets and give this nonsense a pass.
The deplaning issue is likely to be helped; people are already standing.
No I don’t want standing seats, just let me stand on my own 2 feet and give me something to hold onto like on a bus. Airplane seats are dirty and disgusting anyway.
I was on Ryanair a couple of days ago, on one of their new 737 Maxes – which they call a 737-8200 to avoid the whole “death” thing.
Their Max layout already has extra pair of emergency exits, an extra jump seat for more cabin crew, and only 8 more seats, so I imagine they can wedge quite a lot more self-loading freight aboard before it’s a problem.
The chances of this flying in the US are non-existent, and I really can’t see European regulators going for it either. Asia? Possibly. You can’t cram 30% more passengers in without increasing both the number of emergency exits (the real capacity limitation) and the number of flight attendants at a minimum. I guess some rows of these things in the back as steerage class and more premium seats up front? Actually, THAT would work for me – I’d be in the good seats up front.
If it does happen – I certainly have no interest in flying that way, not even for free. They RyanAir’s and Spirits of the world can do whatever they want, I would never fly them even now.
I call bullshit. In the event of a crash, smashing your passengers junk is not going to fly by the FAA.
The FAA 3 years ago: no, the FAA of today: not out of the question.
Aren’t they cleaning their act after the 737max fiasco?
No part of the US government can be assumed to be improving under current leadership. Google “Newark airport outage” if you’d like a quick read on the state of things.
Lol, the Newark issues are decades old at this point, and are directly applicable to city and airport administration being incompetent AF. Guess what affiliation they share?
And as someone who has to work with the DoT quite often, the current incarnation is light years better than the previous one.
Yes, but TDS will not allow for any possibility of improvement.
I wouldn’t mind these, but what’s wrong with a bicycle saddle and a pair of handlebars? Those would be even lighter and more comfortable for a long day.
Put in the pedals and let the passengers provide power for taxiing.
They still look like they might be more comfortable than the standard seats on Allegiant.
People complain about Spirit, but I think those people have never flow Allegiant, where I swear they engineered the seats to be uncomfortable.
Frontier comes to mind
I’ve been on multiple flights where they bribed people off to make the payload for the trip.
I can’t follow how this works in reality so I’m going to continue to assume it won’t exist.
Seats are half the weight, but allows for 30% more seats and 150-200 lb passengers = fuel savings? Not sure that maths.
I imagine it’s a 737 class plane flying London to Paris rather than London to New York city. So you have minimal fuel so per passenger fuel is cut by increasing passengers. But like you said it doesn’t math on long flights.
Fuel savings on a per passenger basis.
I’d rather have a seat meet current faa regs for a crash than try to certify my knees.
Hmm, posts up to the ceiling.
This is a load path not intended for when the aircraft was designed. Likely going to need to reinforce the structure. This is expensive and adds weight.
Floor and floor structure are designed for a certain passenger loading. Floor structure may need to be reinforced and new floor panels designed. This is expensive and adds weight.
Seat tracks are designed based on cabin capacity. May need to be redesigned. This is expensive and adds weight.
The extra passenger weight will reduce the capacity for baggage. There won’t be enough bins for carry-ons (especially with losing the ability to store bags under seats. A higher number of bags to be checked.
Many aircraft are passenger limited by the number of exits on the aircraft. Extra emergency exits may be required. This is expensive and adds weight.
The ratio of cabin attendants to passenger is regulated, likely will need more. More cabin attendants mean more cabin attendent seats. This is expensive and adds weight.
Just my two cents with almost 20 years of aircraft design, half of which on interiors.
Yeah, this seems like another instance of the aviation industry choosing the lowest cost options while creating unnecessary and possibly catastrophic problems.
Indeed. Until I see an airline explicitly named as implementing these seats, I won’t believe it. But your comments also point to how these seats might be used. You might be able to put a few rows in back and increase passenger density modestly: say 188 to 197. And then do a Ryanair and use them seats to bolster your reputation as the absolute cheapest in all senses. But most layouts are already pretty optimized. Ok the other hand, you certainly could increase the pitch in the front, where all those heavy seats are, the ones that bring in the revenue. Basic economy just got more basic.
Simples. Just put these seats in the cargo hold and hang them off the ceiling.
If the human cargo complains about being cold they can subscribe to the seat warmer services.
My first thought (almost 10 years in aircraft cabin design as part of my career) was why are we not seeing where those posts end up top? The seat tracks and floor are pretty set in stone and dictate so much of the cabin layout. Structure for overhead bins isn’t designed for taking up those floor mounted loads. Anytime we looked at novel and new layouts for business class concepts, the floor would weed out anything that was getting too “out there”. We were reminded many times that the seat tracks are not up for redesigning.
I really don’t see how these would pass even the most basic 16G sled tests.
Eh. Don’t buy tickets with those seats. Who are you to determine the market?
I can easily see a plane with X number of rows that are stand-up. planes already have different classes withe bigger seats or more service. Heck, UAL already offers the more-legroom rows (Emergency Exit rows) for a higher price.
Would I stand on a plane? Maybe to Vegas or Phoenix or the Bay Area, an hour trip for me. Any longer and no effing way.
Also, are they assuming everyone has the same leg lengths? Or do they adjust?
Still might be better than a packed subway car in summer with broken A/C while you’re stuck because sparks from the third rail lit the tracks on fire and somebody has to go put it out.
I never did quite understand the use of water around electricity, but that’s how they would put out such small fires. Some dude would walk out carrying one of those pump water tanks and nonchalantly tinkle on the tie fire until it was safe to resume rolling.
Memories of the CTA…
I started riding the CTA when they still had a lot of the ancient green/cream colored L cars. The Budd-built cars were light years ahead.
I too. I grew up a few hundred feet from the Isabella, Evanston station (before they decommissioned and demolished it) so I can remember twelve car long Evanston Express trains made up of those split door green cars. Man, were they loud.
It seems appropriate that these seats kind of look like giant meat hooks.