Airbus patents bench seats "to accommodate larger passengers"

[peekay4]

Airbus could seat obese passengers on benches

(CNN) -- Travel can be tricky for passengers of larger girth. For years, travelers have been getting wider, while airline seats have been getting smaller. Not to mention the fact that heavier fliers are too often rewarded with ridicule from their thinner cohorts.

Airbus might have a solution: replace individual seats with rows of benches.

Story highlights

• Airbus has filed a patent for a "reconfigurable passenger bench seat"
• Adjustable, detachable seat belts can accommodate passengers of all sizes
• The debate about how to cope with obese travelers has become heated in recent years

[LlamaFarmer]

Is that a fold-down armrest like you get in the back of the car? i.e. that comes out the middle seat?

So 3 people squashed onto a bench with no armrests, or a fat person gets a nice wide seat with a big arm rest.

[ExXB]

Fine, as long as they pay for their extra real estate. The airlines really need to tweak their booking engines to make it easier to book adjoining seats for "passenger comfort".

[AndoniP]

LlamaFarmer

I would assume the extra space comes at a cost. Unless you ask them how fat they are when booking it would be like Tetris for the agent at check-in

W&B issues? you might have to put the bench seats in the middle

[Car RAMROD]

Nothing new.

I've seen seats like this in a 737- they used to reconfigure the first couple of rows of economy seats into business because the seats had the ability to be 2 or 3 person.

Now, marketing them to the fatties is a newer idea!

[Groundloop]

I've seen seats like this in a 737- they used to reconfigure the first couple of rows of economy seats into business because the seats had the ability to be 2 or 3 person.

But were they a single bench seat? More likely three individual seats with the middle one having an armrest built into the middle of the seat back.

[USER0005]

Isn't it about time that passengers over average weights were charged a kilo rate for every kg over the average - and come to think of it, those under average could be given a discount.

Just need a cubicle beside each check-in desk / self check in machine so that the surcharge / discount could be calculated and collected or divvied up.

Can't seeing it being overly popular amongst the PC brigade - but can see Jet2 doing pretty well out of it!

[Ancient Observer]

When I was young, I was tubby. I was often called a Fat Barsteward.

I was told that nowadays you can't call Fat Barstewards that any more in case they have a disability. Weight challenged doesn't sound much better.

I wonder if I could sue some of my ex-classmates for loadsamoney for being so rude to me back in the 1960s??

[Capot]

charged a kilo rate for every kg over the average -

Not a bad idea, could have worked, even, but now far too late in the USA at least where the average is bordering on obese.

So what average would an averagely obese US citizen be measured against for a flight from, say, San Francisco to Tokyo, and the return flight on the next day?

Or do we establish a global average? If so, how?

It seems to me that we're stuck with making fatties pay for 2 seats if they can't fit between the armrests on one seat, with a declaration implicit in the act of purchase that if only one seat is bought the buyer will fit in it, and forfeiture of the ticket if this is found not to be the case on boarding.

That would mean airlines must publish their seat widths for each class and aircraft, which would be a good thing for them to do.

[Businesstraveller]

Originally Posted by Ancient Observer

I was told that nowadays you can't call Fat Barstewards that any more in case they have a disability. Weight challenged doesn't sound much better.

Whilst 'Barsteward' is pejorative, 'fat' is a factual description. Therefore that should be fine. If you describe a fat person as being 'big', this is a euphemism that could also be applied to a tall person - unhelpful.

[BlankBox]

...if the airline sold the ticket...and there were no disclaimers in the carriage rules...isn't it up to the airline then, to make the fatness fit??

[ExXB]

So what is so new here that a patent can be applied for? (In the OP the only reference to 'patent' is in the title.)

I seriously doubt that anything here qualifies for a patent.

[HeartyMeatballs]

To be honest I think this will also be a cheaper easier way for airlines to offer a flexible euro business style product. Instead of needing tooling to change the seats it looks like just the arm rest is moving. Quicker and cheaper than the old clunky converter seats potentially without the need for an engineer.

It could also be used by a person of size or two persons of size. They'll be able to fit in the arm rest.

It's better than the racketeering of charging them for two seats, then assigning them a second seat on the opposite end of the aircraft which I Have heard of before.

[ExXB]

As I mentioned earlier the airlines really need to put some effort into making the booking of an additional adjacent seat (for passenger comfort - or violin) easier. At the moment most require a call to an agent, at an additional fee, and it cannot be done online.

Why does something so easy, have to be difficult.