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Comment by mixmastamyk | Hacker News Reader

While suffering on a plane I've often fantasized about taking a common block of nine seats (3x3) and turning them into 3-high bunk beds in the same space instead.

That leaves meal delivery and baggage as two problems to solve. I think the first could be solved with a sliding panel near the head. I think baggage could be put on top of the row or two closest to the aisle.

May be more kinks to iron out (getting in/out) but the thought of laying flat on a long flight sounds so heavenly I'd be willing to suffer other issues. Thoughts?

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The main issue is safety and evacuation.

I'd be happy lying in a large coffin in the luggage compartment for 7-8 hours. Would actually be far more comfortable than economy class.

> The main issue is safety and evacuation.

Considering the FAA refused to test if current seat pitch was safe during evacuation, until a judge forced them, safety has been ignored on this issue for a long time[0].

[0] http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/29/news/companies/faa-airline-s...

My reading of that article is that the FAA hadn't previously tested whether small seat pitches are unsafe for non-emergency reasons, like if they cause more cases of deep vein thrombosis in passengers.

The article ends saying, "The agency so far has allowed airlines to determine how to size and space their seats, but any arrangement of an airline cabin must allow all the passengers and crew to evacuate within 90 seconds." It's long been my understanding that every potential airline seat configuration must pass an FAA evacuation test before it's allowed in service.

This happend to me multiple times when I was flying on a monthly basis with Swiss. I had the whole row for myself for about 3 hours. Its not so comfortable to lay down because of the seatbelts and the arm-holder on the window seat. I am 170cm tall and my feet were in the aisle and got sometimes hit by people. But it's truly nice to stretch my legs across three seats on the floor while leaning against the window seat. The first tray is for the notebook and the second one for drinks and food. That is truly comfortable.

I increased the likelyhood of this happening to me by buying the cheapest tickets possible for a range of multiple weeks (not enough customers) and for always choosing a window seat in the last few rows. Often the seats where crowded in the beginning of the airplane but at least one middle seat was empty in the back.

Fun idea, but safety is going to be a big hurdle. :)

Safer because you're in an additional box. Think Tokyo capsule hotel with seatbelt.

That doesn't help when the plane catches fire on the tarmac and everyone has only 90 seconds to get out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/business/a-lesson-in-air-s...

It does help if you add that as a design requirement, perhaps a five sided box. It's not like it's particularly easy to get out of a packed window seat today.

As long as my flight is still safer than the drive to the airport I'm not going to automatically reject ideas that could be unsafe in very rare circumstances.

Unfortunately the vast majority of the people will probably disagree with you. Mostly because people don't understand statistics well. They will always be more frightened by a few hundred people burnt alive when a plane catches fire every ten years or less than by the amount of people killed in road accidents every days.

I think that would end up being quite space inefficient, as people tend to be > 3 time taller than they are wider.

I'm thinking same floor space but extending upward in third dimension.

Isles are 31 inches apart, but seats are only ~17-18 inches wide. Stacking 3 tall gives you ~17.5 x 3 * 31 square inches. If you give 20 inches for bunk width that's 6'8" for bunk height which works out.

I don't think you could safely stack three of these, but it's going to be more comfortable on long flights.

> I don't think you could safely stack three of these

They could be attached to each other and the roof as well.

I am more concerned with people exiting quickly in an emergency. It might work if everyone was a fit 20 something who practiced it. But, many people would have issues even in normal boarding, crawling over people with a carbon filled with smoke would be a real challenge.

It's not substantially different than a current row of packed seats, especially when leaning back.

It might be even easier to stand up with a good design.

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