Radical New Cabin Design Could Actually Increase Airplane Seat Size
Zodiac Seats France, an airplane parts manufacturer, filed a patent for the “Economy Class Hexagon Cabin,” a seating design that ingeniously takes advantage of the simple physical reality that people—at least most of them—are wider at their shoulders than at their hips, staggering adjacent passengers in the same row in different directions could fit more people in the same amount of space by allowing shoulder space to overlap.
Sketch of the Hexagon Cabin design. Zodiac Seats France application to the European Patent Office
For years, airline seats have been shrinking. The past two decades have seen a decline in the size of airline seats: between 1991 and 2014, the narrowest seats on many major airlines—which are also the most common seats—lost 2 inches in width, or around 10 percent.
When Airbus unveiled its new cabin design in April, it seemed like the bottom of the barrel in terms of seat shrinkage, with the the manufacturer chipping away at the armrests to find space for more seats.
