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New Seats Promise Enough Legroom for EVERY Passenger

A proposed new seat design will allow airlines to quickly adjust legroom based on a passenger’s height, allowing more room for tall travelers and less for shorter flyers.

A novel cabin design concept by B/E Aerospace would give taller passengers a few more precious inches of legroom by allowing crews to snatch “unneeded” space from more petite flyers. In theory, the new “Legroom Adjustable Seats” could be quickly and efficiently moved forward or back to create more or less pitch depending on a given passenger’s needs. Ideally, this would give each passenger on the flight ample room.

“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,” the inventors explained in an excerpt of their patent application. “The one size fits all seating arrangement can cause discomfort for tall passengers, while a child or relatively small adult may be seated in an identical seat at the seat pitch, with more than ample leg room and in relative comfort.”

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In practice, the design may prove more controversial than it looks on paper. Passengers have trouble sharing armrests and overhead storage bins and heated disagreements over reclining airplane seats have resulted in violence and arrests on more than one occasion. Introducing another issue to debate may only heat up the age-old fight over cabin space. It seems unlikely that flyers will be able to peacefully decide who deserves more legroom on long flights.

The design wisely takes decision about legroom out of the passengers’ hands allowing only the crew to adjust seat pitch using a remote control. Still it seems possible that some passengers might question the flight attendants’ judgement when it comes to who deserves more legroom.

The real benefit of the sliding seat might come in to play when planes are less crowded and a little extra legroom can be taken from an empty seat rather than a seat occupied by another passenger who might raise an objection to less space.

[Photo: B/E Aerospace]

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5 Comments
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BJM August 12, 2015

The big winner is the kid. The seat is much closer for him to kick.

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Fragola August 12, 2015

How long would it take for flight attendants to adjust all the seats? Especially after passengers finish cramming all the carry ons they didn't want to pay to check in? Not happening in row in front of exit row. With load factors being so high these days when would you find an empty seat in just the right place? Yeah, just a little problematic in practice.

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weero August 12, 2015

That huge motor under the seat is of course terrible .... but as the concept will require single file window seats and no more middles, many travellers should enjoy this ...

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Bear4Asian August 12, 2015

The subtitle, "The War is Over" is, of course, wrong. Part of the war is over if this is even feasible. but more important is the width of the seat. When airlines insist on putting passengers in a 17" wide seat on a 14 hour flight, the war has barely begun. Everywhere in the world I travel, young people are taller and bigger and wider than ever. Get real airlines. Don't insult us with fantasies.

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BJM August 11, 2015

In my opinion a concept that will "not take off." What is all that stuff under the seat? Will that take up the under-seat space? What is the weight penalty for this system? Can each seat in the row move independently? If yes then I think you have an issue with safety similar to a seat back not being in the upright position. If the row has to move as a unit then people not needing the space might get more space and those needing it could lose. Could it be monitized and you pay for extra inches? Does the person behind get a rebate for losing inches? What if the person seated behind is also tall? Then the person in the third row loses out on twice the space. Or does row two only get back what they lost? I think the airlines have already solved the extra room issue by offering economy -x products or premium cabins. Much easier to execute. The last paragraph is about the benefit being when planes are less crowded; airlines have optimized their load factors, so not too many "less crowded" planes these days. In this case why would you install the system when you could only use it basically never. It seems that this solution creates more questions and does not solve much.