The design that’ll make you love the middle seat

Aisle inside a plane. Interior with passengers on the seats

An aviation design company has been working on an innovative way to make the middle seat more comfortable for passengers.

The middle seat has long been an undesirable seat to be stuck with on a flight (especially a long-haul flight), what with being wedged between two other passengers.

Well, we have good news! An aviation design firm based in Colorado, Molon Labe Designs have a solution with introducing the “stagger seat” concept.

They have designed a new middle-seat that is 3 inches (7.62 cm) wider than the adjacent window and aisle seats, complete with its own armrests. It is positioned a little further back and lower to allow more space between passengers.

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The widened seat will also allow extra room for inflight entertainment to grow to 18 inches (45.72 cm), compared to the window and aisle seats’ 15 inches.

Fox News have reported that Molon Labe have completed the FAA required safety standards tests including 16G and 14G force, and a Head Impact Criteria Tests.

There’s also another concept in the works— the “Side-Slip Seat,” a middle seat that folds into its partners for easier, quicker boarding on shorter plane trips.

The two concepts are based on the same framework, and the ‘Side-Slip’ model has passed in-house crash tests, including a trial to make sure flyers’ heads won’t get injured in the event of an emergency.

Assuming those seats can perform the same way in front of the FAA, they could be in planes by the end of 2017, with the Stagger Seats not so far behind.

The company are hoping to roll out the new designs in the next two years, but they will have to find airlines that are interested first!

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Images: MOLON LABE

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

    Latest comments
    1. Won’t this encourage larger framed people to sit in the middle? Would you then sit at the window? The armrests are also thinner. No real winners in that regard. Also if two of the seats are empty how will lying down feel? Might be a good solution for short haul, but not sure about long haul.

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