Adjustable Plane Seat Could Mean More Legroom, More Arguments
A new patent submission details a airplane seat that would roll back and forth to give tall passengers more leg room and short passengers less. (Photo: B/E Aerospace)
Tall airplane passengers are about to have their minds blown, and their legs extended. B/E Aerospace has submitted a patent application for an adjustable plane seat that rolls forward or backward, allowing travelers of different heights to enjoy different amounts of legroom.
While the idea is new, the mechanics are not: The system cleverly works on airplanes’ already-existing seat tracks. Each adjustable seat would be fitted with wheels that run on that track, and the whole thing would simply roll forward or backward to accommodate passengers of different heights.
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As reported in Skift (which has dubbed the invention the “Knee Rescue Seat”), B/E sees big returns from small changes:
“While passengers come in many sizes, children, adolescents, adults, men, women and with large height differentials within these categories, seat spacing in the main cabin of passenger aircraft is generally uniform except at exit rows.…Even a relatively small incremental increase in seat spacing for the tall passengers can provide additional comfort with no loss of comfort to the much smaller passengers seated in front of the tall passengers.”
Passengers would give their heights at check-in and then flight attendants would assign them a certain amount of leg room depending on that info. (Photo: B/E Aerospace)
Where things get a little sticky is in the decision about who gets the precious additional inches. The suggested plan is that passengers would be required to disclose their height at check-in, and then the flight attendants would put the legroom puzzle together. The assumption is that children and small adults would not need as much room and wouldn’t be too put out by giving their space to, say, the basketball player in front of them.
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Of course, not all short people are likely to be so accommodating. So while the design is an interesting answer to ongoing plans for airlines to cram more seats into already crowded planes, this particular solution seems ripe for causing more knee defender riots.
Add this to the adjustable-width Morph seat designed by Seymourpowell a few years back, and airplane cabins could soon be highly customizable. And, we imagine, highly contentious.
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