Design Q reveals new high-density seating concept

(MARY KIRBY)   Are you an airline that wants to offer high-density configurations on short-haul flights but doesn’t want the media circus - and logistical headaches – of installing/certifying vertical seats? Well then premier UK-based consultancy Design Q may just have the answer for you.

The company, which was instrumental in the design of Virgin Atlantic’s acclaimed “Upper Class” seats, envisages a solution that entails a row of inward facing seats on each side of the aircraft plus two back-to-back rows down the middle resulting in a configuration whereby passengers are facing each other.

Design Q’s preliminary image, revealed to the world for the first time by Flight International and Runway Girl, “shows a generous gap between each of the seats, which could be reduced, but the centre seats are staggered to coincide with the gaps on the outboard seats”, says Design Q co-founder Howard Guy.

Read all about this concept – and the plausibility of other new seating designs – in my latest Flight interiors feature.

Now, I know what you may be thinking – this looks not unlike the inside of an aircraft troop carrier. The new bit, of course, is that Design Q would be putting a back-to-back seat row down the middle “and of course we’re looking at it from a commercial point of view”, says Guy.

But if this general type of configuration is okay for the military, then why not for Joe Blow?

For reference, here is a pic of troop seats from the following site:www.baslerturbo.com/jumpseats.html)

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/runway-girl/2009/09/exclusive-design-q-reveals-new.html