When you have covered travel news for 25 years, as I have, you notice that certain stories flare up with the regularity of heartburn.
Such it is with standing airline seats, a sizzling hot news story that first appeared in 2010. Fifteen years ago, I inspected the concept for AOL, a media outlet that, over time, has not shown the same staying power as this fear.
Back then, an Italian company called Aviointeriors, which designs airline seats for the commercial market, was called upon to develop a new type of airline seat that the company calls the SkyRider. With this invention, airplanes can cram as many as 20% more people inside by forcing them to half-stand, half-lean on vertical saddle-like contraptions that look more like anti-vagrancy devices than an airline product any self-respecting traveler would choose.
A typical American Airlines seat has between 31 and 32 inches of pitch, the measurement from the back of one seat to the back of the one in front of it. The SkyRider design shrinks pitch to 23 inches, enabling airlines to squeeze a lot more cash out of each flight by packing customers into cabins like library books.
Billionaire Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair, tried to embrace the concept for his Europe-based low-cost carrier. This is the same man who propagated the rumor that he would force passengers to pay to use airline lavatories and barf bags because he loved the “cheap publicity.” Tormenting and toying with the public is apparently a prerequisite for billionaires in today’s world.
Because it sells other seats that are in practical usage on airlines, Aviointeriors regularly shows up at major aviation conventions, where it shows off the evolution of the as-yet-unsold SkyRider idea and fresh groups of travel reporters seize upon the concept yet again to generate hyperbolic coverage and terrorize travelers. “The new SkyRider airline seats will have you standing, not sitting, on your next flight,” shrieked the esteemed Condé Nast Traveler in 2018.
That was 7 years ago, and we’re still sitting on flights.
This year, the clickbait harpies have picked up the topic yet again in story after story just begging for your fear and outrage.
“It seems the source is the popular Instagram account Entrepreneurship Quote, which posted: ‘In a bold move to reduce airfare expenses, several budget airlines will introduce standing-only seating options beginning in 2026,'” reported Birmingham Live, an outlet that nonetheless persisted in presenting standing seats as a thing that “could” happen next year.
It can be truly depressing watching people fall for the same nonsense over and over.
I said it in 2010 and I’m saying it again: Not gonna happen anytime soon.
Are standing airline seats coming soon?
The regulatory requirements to make standing airline seats possible have not been met in either Europe or North America, and they’re unlikely to ever be satisfied—unless government oversight finally becomes so corrupt and useless that this concept is forced through.
Prachi Patel, who writes for the blog Simple Flying, lays out the details of the obstacles well. You can read her work here. The short version is summed up with this excerpt: “No aviation regulator, whether in Europe, North America, or elsewhere, has certified any form of vertical or semi-standing seat for passenger service. The required crash testing, cabin layout adjustments, and certification processes remain unaddressed, and no airline has taken the first operational steps to adopt such seating.”
That’s true in Europe as well as in the United States and Canada.
And it’s exactly what I’ve been saying since Ethan Hawke, Goldie Hawn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger were more famous than their children.
There are additional issues discouraging the adoption of standing seats.
The standing configuration won’t work across the entire width of most commercial aircraft because of the curvature of the ceiling, and that would impact the seats’ promised capacity.
Further, current FAA guidelines require two flight attendants per 50 passengers, so any increase in passengers would result in increased staffing expenses for airlines.
Standing seats also provide much less bodily protection in the case of accidents or airborne objects, and the threat of lawsuits could keep airlines from even bothering to try the SkyRider out.
And speaking of legal hurdles, the seat’s design, which requires passengers to have full use of two legs and to be able to balance when erect, would run afoul of the Americans with Disabilities Act if alternative accommodations were not made available.
But the most important factor working against standing seats is that people absolutely despise them.
Any airline that dared to force this arrangement upon passengers would lose so much business that it would scorch the balance sheet.
I think the only reason we’re still talking about these things is Michael O’Leary’s decision to inject this poison into the travel news bloodstream all those years ago. He turned a drawing board concept that would normally have faded into irrelevance into a topic of international discussion.
His abuse of publicity is what gave this absurdity legs to begin with. And commercial airlines have degraded the quality of their core product so relentlessly and regularly that travelers, worn out by greed, now half-believe carriers could actually try doing this to us next.
Have a seat, travelers, and wait out this current flare-up of clickbait herpes. There’s more to every story than its scary headline.
