SkyRider, the “saddle” seat of the future

Remember when Ryanair said it would introduce standing-room aboard their flights? Well it turns out that airlines are really digging the new aircraft “standing seat” that was revealed last week at an industry trade show. Maybe it’s not so far-fetched as we thought.

The “saddle seat”, which was unveiled last week at an airline industry conference, is meant to increase the number of passengers that can fit into Economy class. The design allows passengers a meagre 58.5 cm (23 inches) of legroom compared to British Airways 79 cm (31 inches) in Economy class.

The seat’s shape is very similar to that of a horse’s saddle so passengers sit at an angle with their weight on their legs. In this way seats can be overlapped. Seats also feature storage space for overhead luggage and hooks for jackets and purses.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to worry about saddle sitting on long-haul flights. Even the makers admit that the seats are only designed for flights up to 3 hours in length. It does mean though that low cost airlines like Ryanair and easyJet might be willing to jump on this bandwagon with the opportunity to fit more passengers in the same space on low cost flights around Europe.

What do you think of the new design? Would you be willing to pay less to sit in a “saddle” seat?