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Proposed airline seating design has passengers facing one another

By Marilyn Malara
The proposed airline seats from Zodiac Seats France flips around the middle chair and reportedly gives passengers more shoulder and leg room at the expense of having to face others. Photo by Chareyre Romain/Zodiac Seats France
The proposed airline seats from Zodiac Seats France flips around the middle chair and reportedly gives passengers more shoulder and leg room at the expense of having to face others. Photo by Chareyre Romain/Zodiac Seats France

WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) -- An exploratory airline seating design from Zodiac Aerospace aims to maximize the amount of passengers on a single flight by turning them around.

In a patent filed by industry supplier Zodiac Seats France and announced Friday, the new seating design -- named the Economy Class Cabin Hexagon -- flips every middle seat around to face the two behind it. Airline commuters would thus face one another on budget flights if incorporated into single-aisled planes.

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The designers claim in the patent application that flipping the seats around, and adding a theater-like fold-down feature, will increase the amount of room between them by 15 percent, "giving each passenger four more inches of available leg room."

According to the document, passengers will also be given more shoulder space at the expense of the comfort of not staring strangers in the face.

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