Flying economy on an 18 hour-plus flight is enough to break anyone’s spirit - and it’s almost impossible to get comfortable when you’re in a stiff seat that hardly reclines.
Start-up company Zephr Aerospace has designed a two-tiered, lie-flat seating system for economy passengers which could be a long-haul saviour.
The design would see a double-decker seating arrangement in the cabin, giving passengers more space and also more isolation from other passengers, which could be essential in a post-COVID world.
Airlines wouldn’t miss out either, as the seats would be built in a 2-4-2 sequence across the cabin so as not to reduce the amount of passengers on the plane.
Zephyr Aerospace designer Jeffry O’Neill said he came up with the idea after a long-haul flight to Singapore.
O’Neill told CNN: “I'm on probably the best rated airline in the world, and I'm getting wonderful service and the food is edible, but I can't sleep. [It was] really uncomfortable. Why is it so difficult to find an affordable way to lie flat on a flight that's 19 hours?''
The second tier of seats would replace the space where the overhead cabins are now - but the design doesn’t make it clear where we would place hand luggage (although if COVID guidelines continue, passengers will have to check in their hand luggage in any case).
O’Neill added: “We basically retrofitted a whole other seat on top of another, so it's essentially two levels. It's not as tall off the ground as people might imagine, it's only four and a half feet off the ground from the entry point to the lower seat to the upper seat.”
While the idea is still in the design stage, earlier this year Air New Zealand released a prototype that could introduce lie-flat bunk beds to its economy class. Called ‘Skynest’ the airline revealed it had filed a patent and trademark applications for six full-length lie-flat sleeping pods measuring 200cm by 58cm.
