Are double-decker seats coming to an airplane near you?

Many of us have travelled – either domestically or internationally.But would you sit in a plane with double-decker seats?Some people think it’s the future of air travel.Let’s take a closer look:OriginsAirplane seat designer Alejandro Núñez Vicente certainly thinks so.According to The Independent, Vicente first began developing this seat in 2021 – while he was in college.

Vicente, who stands at 6 foot 2 inches, said his goal was to create additional legroom on airplanes.

This, after spending many flights struggling to fit comfortable into his seat and fall asleep, as per CNN.A prototype of the 23-year-old’s Chaise Longue Airplane Seat first went viral last year.‘Fresh hell just dropped’The design was not received well on social media.As per The Independent, one person called it a ‘nightmarish vision’, while another added “as if being on a plane isn’t miserable enough already.”“Fresh hell just dropped,” a third tweeted.“To be honest, there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” Vicente told CNN Travel at the time.Now, Vicente is displaying a new version of his creation at the Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Germany’s Hamburg. Yet again, this has not been gone down well on social media.  Vicente says people need not concern themselves with issues regarding flatulence on the plane.“The idea is that there will be some kind of restraint here,” he told USA Today, pointing to a partition behind the upper level of seats. He added that ‘it wouldn’t go straight through’ unless it were especially forceful.

Vicente also said his seat design is friendly to the differently-abled.

“It’s much easier for flight attendants to help  (disabled passengers) into their seats by having this folding seating option,” he told the outlet. “The idea is that the seat folds up in every single row of the aircraft to make it much more accessible.”‘People always hate innovation’“People can talk and they always hate innovation in some ways,” Vicente told CNN.“Most of the times when they show you something new, everyone hates it at first, they’re scared of change. But the more you show it, and the more you develop it, and the more they see it, the more they get used to it.”[caption id="attachment_12717652" align="alignnone" width="640"]

Alejandro Núñez Vicente at the Chaise Lounge. Instagram[/caption]Vicente admitted to CNN that the airlines and industry bigwigs were backing his design in order to add more passengers on the aircraft.It’s not our main priority and our main goal, but with this kind of design it’s also possible,” he added.

The question now is how quickly this can get to market.

“With the attraction that we’re having and with the response from the public and the sector, I think it will be close to two years, two years and a half,” Vicente told The Independent.It’ll never fly, warn criticsHowever, some say this design is unlikely to ever be put into practice.

As the website Arstechnica pointed out, the concept, known as a standing seat, has been around for decades.

Airbus in 2015 filed a patent for them and Italian design house Aviointeriors in 2019 displayed a bicycle-style upright seat entitled the Skyrider.The main obstacle, the website says, is measuring up to the regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration – which can be exacting.“In stacked seating, the heads of the passengers on the bottom tiers are precariously close to the seats of those on the top tiers, which could cause serious injury in the event of an emergency maneuver. The same would be true with standing seats since they are spaced so closely together from front to back, and passengers’ heads would be much closer to the fuselage of a plane when using a standing seat,” the website states.Another issue is that adding passengers would mean needing more flight attendants, more bathrooms and more food and drink. That, apart from the increased weight the plane would need to bear – of both the passengers and the luggage.“That added weight means planes will consume more fuel and become less efficient, which in turn would mean that the cost of flying would go up even more,” the piece noted.With inputs from agenciesRead all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.