The Daily Mail uncovered, or was at least the earliest report I could find, a patent filed by Airbus that would stack passengers and use up that precious room in your already-crowded flight that would otherwise be taken up by a freeloading combination of oxygen and nitrogen, otherwise known as air.
"The arrangement proposed by Airbus designers would be used in a premium cabin such as business class with rows in the middle section alternating between floor level and an elevated level that is several feet higher," the Daily Mail reports. "Every seat would recline into a lying position, and those at the lower level would have an ottoman with stairs or a ladder mounted on the side to allow passengers to climb into their mezzanine seats."
It needs to be noted that these are merely ideas filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, so Airbus deserves the benefit of the doubt. These are ideas that may never even have been intended to go into production, but at the same time, you wouldn't want an engineer taking these ideas to Boeing and watching them make billions of dollars by decreasing passenger comfort either.
Check out all of Airbus' ideas in the gallery at the top of the page and let us know what you think @GroundSupportWW, on Facebook and on LinkedIn.
