Notes Design

It sounds too good to be true, so let's face it, it probably is: The Airborne Hotel concept--another nifty entry in the Create the Future contest--purports to increase airplane capacity while affording more individual comfort.

The Airborne Hotel, or abh, is an innovative seating system for wide-body aircraft that optimizes the available cabin space, ensuring a fully-reclining seat-bed for every passenger on board, while maintaining--and even increasing--passenger capacity of aircraft.

The design's functionality is based on the bi-level configuration of its seating modules, which enables the utilization of the otherwise empty overhead space in an aircraft cabin. Each module is designed to weigh about the same as a conventional airplane seat; this is possible because the modules' honeycomb structure allows for multiple points of anchoring and fastening to the aircraft's fuselage, thus enabling the use of lighter materials. Another element of the design is its unique implementation of three aisles throughout the passenger cabin; this feature is essential to the design's efficiency, and also increases corridor space by 50%.

I'll tell you right now, I could deal with constant flight delays and being trapped on the runway if I could sleep through the whole ordeal. If this concept hits prime time, I'd look forward to the extra shuteye.

via the airline blog