Airbus Patents Seat Stacking Scheme

In the persistent quest to squeeze ever more passengers into the finite space of a composite tube, Airbus has patented a proposal to stack a second layer of seats above the middle rows of wide-bodies to fill those cubic feet with fare-paying cargo. The company has filed a variety of designs to accomplish the high-density seating, including what appear to be lie-flat options. There has naturally been spirited response to the proposal, virtually all of it negative.

Gizmodo's headline read "We Cannot Allow This Design for Acrobatic Airplane Seating to Become Real" while others said the market will surely kill this plan. It's worth noting that the idea is to put the mezzanine seats in business class, rather than economy.