As per title. The talks of long period of social distancing is causing headaches in airline industry. Wide-body planes can copy better due to its twin aisle and premium heavy seating.

However, in narrow body aircraft, the social distancing methods are vital to many of the Low Cost Carriers. One hand they can not afford to raise fares too much to comply the social distancing rules. On another hand they need to run the aircraft at a higher occupancy rate in order to keep alive.

There are two solution currently for LCC to adapt. One solution is what Easy Jet is doing, that leave middle seat free. But in practical, that is not good for families or couples travel together in the long term. Couple travel together or family of 3 travelling together should be safe to seat together and free up spaces for airlines to take more passengers. Otherwise we go back the problem again on occupancy and fares.

The second solution is what an Italian designer proposing, a staggered Yin-Yang seating arrangement. That makes A, C, D and F seats face forward and B and E seats face backward. However, this would require airlines to spend billions to retrofit aircrafts with new seats. And they have to have bigger space between rows as such configuration would be nightmare for emergency evacuation. Thus bigger spacing is required between rows. (imagine the nightmare for passenger in A and F window seats in the current 30 inches pitch).

I start to wonder, without drastically buying new designed seat, a short term fix is needed. Thus, what do you think if airlines can make the current seating of 3-3 in narrow body into 2-1-2 twin aisle seating? In EasyJet's leave mid seat free plan, it would seats 4 people maximum per row. However, with a 2-1-2 seating, airlines can put 4 to 5 people per row considering at least 1/3 of the passenger are couples or family. In that way, airlines can have a bigger maximum capacity without the need to go for the new Yin-Yang seating.

Of course the situation is fluid. And I realise the 2-1-2 seating is not a long term fix and in fact it may not fix anything at all. It is a stupid ideas for many. But, what is your opinion on the possibility? Please share. Thank you.

1-3-1 would be more effective if you have all solo travelers requiring an “aisle airway space” or a “seat airway space.”

4 pax potential across in this method versus
3 pax potential across in 2-1-3

Additionally if the airlines and manufacture were going to go to this ...

To get 5 across an additional splash guard “wall / divider/ barrier” could be installed ALL the way down the length of the cabin in the middle 3 seat unit of 1-3-1

So the 3 seat unit is splash guarded to a 1-2 configuration. The key is simplicity, flexibility and easy of sanitation.

Perhaps a long opaqued “shower curtain” barrier that could be strung all the way down the cabin and replaced after EVERY flight is my thinking.

I can understand the loneliness of pax who sits in the middle column....

Wait a minute, being covered by two aisle is quite dangerous, as surveys showed that aisle-seaters are easier to be infected by the CoV.

chonetsao wrote:

Of course the situation is fluid. And I realise the 2-1-2 seating is not a long term fix and in fact it may not fix anything at all. It is a stupid ideas for many. But, what is your opinion on the possibility? Please share. Thank you.

That's the word.

If relevant governments mandate social-distanced seating it will likely be within the setup of current seating: zero reconfig expense.

At 50% load factors there are some setups within rows, and row-to-row, that achieve some distancing. If governments want to mandate a minimum space of 6 feet (2 meters) between every passenger, carriers can just liquidate now. There's no way to make that work at anything like historical fares, and demand and profitability will be crushed by a max passenger load of ~40 on a 737-800.

Widebody or not they're all still sealed tubes with recirculated air. No amount of 'social distancing' will stop the spread of a disease.

Whatever the outcome, I hope the days of airlines trying to cram more seats in Y to make money are over.

One solution is what Easy Jet is doing, that leave middle seat free.

That is incorrect. easyJet are not doing that.
CEO Johan Lundgren only suggested that it’s something that may be considered for the short term. He came nowhere near to committing to such a plan.

The idea of 2-1-2 is ridiculous, no airline in the world has even hinted that they would consider such a thing.

CarbonFibre wrote:

Widebody or not they're all still sealed tubes with recirculated air. No amount of 'social distancing' will stop the spread of a disease.

except its mostly fresh air. not much recirculation. That lie has been going around for decades.

CarbonFibre wrote:

Widebody or not they're all still sealed tubes with recirculated air. No amount of 'social distancing' will stop the spread of a disease.

With better filtration than most of the masks the passengers would ever wear. So you're actually better off in a plane than in a mall.

Who's going to flip the bill for the re certification costs? The airlines? The govt?

Humans have very gross hygiene habits. They walk barefoot onto the planes, eat food off the tray tables with out plates, change their kids dirty diapers on the very same tray tables, oh and did I mention feet? They use those to close the window shades and scroll their PTV screens. Social distancing is very much a thing right now, however once the Coronavirus story blows away, so too will the social distancing.. Eventually people will return to their gross habits.. The best thing airlines will do in the short term is leave the middle seat open..

CarbonFibre wrote:

Widebody or not they're all still sealed tubes with recirculated air. No amount of 'social distancing' will stop the spread of a disease.

Then perhaps it is time to mandate 100% fresh air on all commercial aircraft? No recirculated air whatsoever. Eliminating recirculated cabin air combined with revised seating to provide additional distancing and a new permanent focus on disinfection and frequent deep cleaning might be the recipe needed to convince people to get back onboard in large numbers.

If we have tolerated 50+ years of 3-3 seating, with flu and every other air borne sickness, this too will pass.

2-1-2 will not be enough to respect the 1-1,5 meters (39-59 inches) recommendation.

1-1-1 could do the job (with 59'" pitch)

DL747400 wrote:

CarbonFibre wrote:

Widebody or not they're all still sealed tubes with recirculated air. No amount of 'social distancing' will stop the spread of a disease.

Then perhaps it is time to mandate 100% fresh air on all commercial aircraft? No recirculated air whatsoever. Eliminating recirculated cabin air combined with revised seating to provide additional distancing and a new permanent focus on disinfection and frequent deep cleaning might be the recipe needed to convince people to get back onboard in large numbers.

Where did you come up with the notion that air on airplanes is recirculated? On most aircraft in the US, air is completely refreshed 20 times per hour. In addition, filtration system on airplanes is better than most office buildings, especially considering airlines use HEPA filters. The problem with airplanes and germs / bacteria / viruses is the density of the aircraft combined with not regularly sanitizing surfaces. If an airplane didn’t constantly have fresh air pumped into the aircraft, then the air onboard would become toxic due to the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled from passengers.

I say, bring back the Tu-114 arrangement:





One person or one family group per compartment. No COVID transmission.

What would the 787 be? 1-2-2-2-1?

workhorse wrote:

2-1-2 will not be enough to respect the 1-1,5 meters (39-59 inches) recommendation.

1-1-1 could do the job (with 59'" pitch)

6 feet of separation is not going to be happening on airplanes... period. End of story.

MrPeanut wrote:

DL747400 wrote:

CarbonFibre wrote:

Widebody or not they're all still sealed tubes with recirculated air. No amount of 'social distancing' will stop the spread of a disease.

Then perhaps it is time to mandate 100% fresh air on all commercial aircraft? No recirculated air whatsoever. Eliminating recirculated cabin air combined with revised seating to provide additional distancing and a new permanent focus on disinfection and frequent deep cleaning might be the recipe needed to convince people to get back onboard in large numbers.

Where did you come up with the notion that air on airplanes is recirculated? On most aircraft in the US, air is completely refreshed 20 times per hour. In addition, filtration system on airplanes is better than most office buildings, especially considering airlines use HEPA filters. The problem with airplanes and germs / bacteria / viruses is the density of the aircraft combined with not regularly sanitizing surfaces. If an airplane didn’t constantly have fresh air pumped into the aircraft, then the air onboard would become toxic due to the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled from passengers.

OK, I thought this was obvious, but apparently not? My take on the original post above was to point out that depending on the aircraft and engines, a certain portion of cabin air is recirculated on most commercial airliners.

scbriml wrote:

CarbonFibre wrote:

Widebody or not they're all still sealed tubes with recirculated air. No amount of 'social distancing' will stop the spread of a disease.

With better filtration than most of the masks the passengers would ever wear. So you're actually better off in a plane than in a mall.

And people keep throwing the recirculating air thing as if it was an issue in the current COVID-19 situation: so far, it has not been proven that COVID-19 is an airborne virus, it's liquid-borne. So, you can recirculate the air as many times as you want, the virus won't spread.

That, and the fact that a lot of fresh air is added to the system on a continuous basis makes this "complain" baseless.

chonetsao wrote:

I start to wonder, without drastically buying new designed seat, a short term fix is needed. Thus, what do you think if airlines can make the current seating of 3-3 in narrow body into 2-1-2 twin aisle seating? In EasyJet's leave mid seat free plan, it would seats 4 people maximum per row. However, with a 2-1-2 seating, airlines can put 4 to 5 people per row considering at least 1/3 of the passenger are couples or family. In that way, airlines can have a bigger maximum capacity without the need to go for the new Yin-Yang seating.

Of course the situation is fluid. And I realise the 2-1-2 seating is not a long term fix and in fact it may not fix anything at all. It is a stupid ideas for many. But, what is your opinion on the possibility? Please share. Thank you.

In addition to the very valid points made by posters above, a significant issue for installing a 2-1-2 (or 1-2-2 or 2-2-1, or 1-2-1 or 2-1-1 or 1-1-2, or 1-1-1) configuration in a narrowbody is where to attach the seats. The current design has tracks for the seats to anchor into on either side of the aisle. To rearrange seat tracks would be a very costly exercise in recertification, manufacturing and installation - at a guess I would say it would easily be in the same order of magnitude as the costs for a forwards-backwards-forwards seat row - it definitely would not be a cheap short-term solution.

workhorse wrote:

I say, bring back the Tu-114 arrangement:





One person or one family group per compartment. No COVID transmission.

Tu-114neo? I'd ride on one for sure!

V/F

airzona11 wrote:

If we have tolerated 50+ years of 3-3 seating, with flu and every other air borne sickness, this too will pass.

Indeed!

These airplane reconfiguration threads are so utterly bonkers. The airlines are desperate to conserve cash. Sourcing, certifying, and installing new cabin interiors at a moment when large airlines are burning tens of millions per day to exist is delusional. Airplanes aren't going to get new seat covers or carpet for the next five years, much less experimental seating configurations or giant, dangerous, expensive plexiglass dividers. The virus eventually will go away, either because it runs out of hosts (because of immunity), or it runs into the vaccine. Until then, airplanes are going to run with vastly reduced loads - mostly because the economy is in complete crisis. But yes, like wars, airplane groundings, terrorist attacks, economic depressions and all other calamities the industry has faced, this, too, shall pass.

Airport security has evolved a lot after 9/11 and is still very vulnerable. By far, the best system takes place in Israel, where passenger are asked to arrive at least 3 hours before departure, being submitted to psychological interviews, which have proved to be more effective than x-ray screening, dogs or any technology when it comes to prevent terrorism. It's also very expensive, and diminishes passengers' willingness to fly.

So, it's not practical to expand worldwide, as the current stardards, satisfy security goals with a much better trade-off between cost and effectiveness.

Having that said, the same will occur to deal with healthness of passenger stuck inside an airplane, specially on international flights. I foresee a world where passengers are obligated to wear masks, temperure screening will be common, and even fast illness tests are taken prior to accessing airside, rather than having deep cabin configuration changes, specially if they mean drastically reducing cabin density.

Simply because all this cabin reconfiguration proposals that we have seen are ineffective. Even intercontinental premium business are not compliant with minimum requirements of social distancing, so why would airlines permanently block middle seats or implement other "innovative" cabin layouts, when all of them are extremely costly and only a placebo effect to make passengers feel safe (it's comprehensive to have those actions in the middle of the crisis and when there are no passengers at all)?

After this crisis finishes, I do foresee more room for further demand segmentation, with increased demand for business class for instance. European carriers could even having a standard business class again, or we could have LCCs offering a economy class with blocked middle seat for few passengers in the front (again, just placebo). But for most of the passengers, price will still be the main driver for their willingness to fly and they will still look for the cheapest fare even if it means sharing a row with two other fellows on a plane full of passengers.

So, like after 9/11, flying will certainly be marginally more expensive and bothering for all of us, with more health precautions measures before departure. But it will not change drastically as some are preaching.

airzona11 wrote:

If we have tolerated 50+ years of 3-3 seating, with flu and every other air borne sickness, this too will pass.

Finally someone who has some sense.

No airline is going to invest millions for something that will be way behind us in a year!

This all becomes a moot point when there is an effective therapeutic and/or vaccine, which is at most 18 months. I question the massive capex that will be spent to address a problem that, largely, will have abated by this time next year.

Social distancing is a short term solution, it is not sustainable ifor long periods let alone being the new normal so why would anyone change their airctaft seating? Eventually and probably sooner than all the pessimists think it will be back to normal and we will just have to live with Covid19 like all the other things that can kill us.

catiii wrote:

This all becomes a moot point when there is an effective therapeutic and/or vaccine, which is at most 18 months. I question the massive capex that will be spent to address a problem that, largely, will have abated by this time next year.

A reliable vaccine is at least 4 years away... and perhaps may never be found. The 18 month fantasy is based on two conditions being met. 1) The vaccines now being tested are very effective on the 1st trial. 2) There are no moderate to significant side effects noted on the 1st trail. Neither condition has ever been met during vaccine development.

No real person who understand vaccine development is suggesting that it will exist now. The reasons it typically takes 4-6 years is to get something that is fairly effective with only minor side effects.

Also, keep in mind that testing must look at the effects on fetuses in the womb and how they develop as children as they grow up (Lookup Thalidomide. 40% of babies died before age 1, and the vast majority of the survivors past this point had serious issues).

Effective treatments may or may not be found...

Even if an effective treatment or vaccine is found. It then takes time to ramp up production to be able to use it on hundreds of thousands or millions.

What is far more likely is that within a year Covid-19 will have killed off almost all of those that it will kill (the latest info I have seen puts its overall fatality rate of at worst about 0.04% given that antibody testing is showing that the number of people who have had it is at least 10 times as the number of reported positive test results); and the rest of the population will only have been mildly or modestly sick for a week or two.

We'll all be back to flying packed like sardines as people will just take the risk.

Have a great day,

chonetsao wrote:

As per title. The talks of long period of social distancing is causing headaches in airline industry. Wide-body planes can copy better due to its twin aisle and premium heavy seating.

However, in narrow body aircraft, the social distancing methods are vital to many of the Low Cost Carriers. One hand they can not afford to raise fares too much to comply the social distancing rules. On another hand they need to run the aircraft at a higher occupancy rate in order to keep alive.

There are two solution currently for LCC to adapt. One solution is what Easy Jet is doing, that leave middle seat free. But in practical, that is not good for families or couples travel together in the long term. Couple travel together or family of 3 travelling together should be safe to seat together and free up spaces for airlines to take more passengers. Otherwise we go back the problem again on occupancy and fares.

The second solution is what an Italian designer proposing, a staggered Yin-Yang seating arrangement. That makes A, C, D and F seats face forward and B and E seats face backward. However, this would require airlines to spend billions to retrofit aircrafts with new seats. And they have to have bigger space between rows as such configuration would be nightmare for emergency evacuation. Thus bigger spacing is required between rows. (imagine the nightmare for passenger in A and F window seats in the current 30 inches pitch).

I start to wonder, without drastically buying new designed seat, a short term fix is needed. Thus, what do you think if airlines can make the current seating of 3-3 in narrow body into 2-1-2 twin aisle seating? In EasyJet's leave mid seat free plan, it would seats 4 people maximum per row. However, with a 2-1-2 seating, airlines can put 4 to 5 people per row considering at least 1/3 of the passenger are couples or family. In that way, airlines can have a bigger maximum capacity without the need to go for the new Yin-Yang seating.

Of course the situation is fluid. And I realise the 2-1-2 seating is not a long term fix and in fact it may not fix anything at all. It is a stupid ideas for many. But, what is your opinion on the possibility? Please share. Thank you.

here's the problem with this idea. The seat mounting tracks are on one side of the airplane or the other. there ARE no seat tracks down the center aisle ..

VirginFlyer wrote:

Tu-114neo? I'd ride on one for sure!

With hybrid turboprop-electric engines - why not?

You can just block all middle seats and bam, close enough

KlimaBXsst wrote:

workhorse wrote:

2-1-2 will not be enough to respect the 1-1,5 meters (39-59 inches) recommendation.

1-1-1 could do the job (with 59'" pitch)

6 feet of separation is not going to be happening on airplanes... period. End of story.

Exactly. Fares would have to be 6 or 7 times higher to support that capacity decrease.

Having everybody get a COVID rapid test after security at $100 a test would be far more economical. Airports would need 100s of machines for enough throughput.

These threads about two aisles in a narrow-body have more lives than the infamous 7-lives cat! COVID brought us back yet one more.

2-1-2 can only be long-term because the cost of making the change is very big. Let's not even talk about the overhead bins. So, no, it is not going to happen.

Not to say 2-1-2 will never pass evacuation test with less than required aisle width in current narrowbody tube.

Michael

2-2-1 might actually work too, with the barrier between the two middle seats.

1-3-1 offers most overhead bin potential.

eamondzhang wrote:

Not to say 2-1-2 will never pass evacuation test with less than required aisle width in current narrowbody tube.

Michael

How so? You lost one seat per row, so that would be the aisle? Are aisles currently wider than one seat?

MrPeanut wrote:

DL747400 wrote:

CarbonFibre wrote:

Widebody or not they're all still sealed tubes with recirculated air. No amount of 'social distancing' will stop the spread of a disease.

Then perhaps it is time to mandate 100% fresh air on all commercial aircraft? No recirculated air whatsoever. Eliminating recirculated cabin air combined with revised seating to provide additional distancing and a new permanent focus on disinfection and frequent deep cleaning might be the recipe needed to convince people to get back onboard in large numbers.

Where did you come up with the notion that air on airplanes is recirculated? On most aircraft in the US, air is completely refreshed 20 times per hour. In addition, filtration system on airplanes is better than most office buildings, especially considering airlines use HEPA filters. The problem with airplanes and germs / bacteria / viruses is the density of the aircraft combined with not regularly sanitizing surfaces. If an airplane didn’t constantly have fresh air pumped into the aircraft, then the air onboard would become toxic due to the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled from passengers.

That "20 times hour number" would be 20 times the cabin volume passing through each hour - that doesn't mean air entering the pressure hull is the same mass flow as air exiting. Whatever doesn't exit through the cabin outflow valve will be cycled into the mix chamber where air from the packs and recirculated cabin air are mixed. There is already plenty of nasty stuff living in cabin duct work and all of it has made it past the infallible HEPA filter.

L1011 TriStar was so ahead of its time! Now days passengers would love to have the social distancing coat storage between the seats!

Maybe no coat storage on a “partitioned middle two seat unit narrow body in a 2-2-1 “ configuration, but one does get a certain amount of social distancing!



Which airlines had these coat cubby’s on the magnificent Tristar?

airzona11 wrote:

If we have tolerated 50+ years of 3-3 seating, with flu and every other air borne sickness, this too will pass.

Agreed! #BearDown

Could we put our adult pants back on and realize that airlines are not going to reconfigure seats to provide for social distancing. The packed like sardines in a can will be back by June as airlines massively cut capacity. Only here and on FT do people seem to drool on some weird fantasy that they will now fly around the world without seat mates to contend with. If flying around elbow to elbow scares you I suggest you stay home.

SXDFC wrote:

Who's going to flip the bill for the re certification costs? The airlines? The govt?

Humans have very gross hygiene habits. They walk barefoot onto the planes, eat food off the tray tables with out plates, change their kids dirty diapers on the very same tray tables, oh and did I mention feet? They use those to close the window shades and scroll their PTV screens. Social distancing is very much a thing right now, however once the Coronavirus story blows away, so too will the social distancing.. Eventually people will return to their gross habits.. The best thing airlines will do in the short term is leave the middle seat open..

the certification would be minimal at best. The Expense? taking up the floors, Cutting and refitting them Moving electrical wiring and the refitting of the Passenger service units to allow for Passenger oxygen and Air conditioning outlets in the passenger service units, and convienient overhead storage, In a narrow body? It would cost as much to build the airplane, In an ETOPS narrow body? Damn near impossible! No 737 could get from the west coast to Hawaii in a configuration like that,
The best bet on the 6 seat rows with ABC-DEF? Remove the B and E seat cushions and seat belts and make the center seat bottom? a Table. Then the airlines would have to raise their fares for the cost of the missing seat about 25%-35%. for a 737 and 12%-18% for a widebody double aisle. as there would be more seas removed.

Not that it would be optimal but the current 767 design could accommodate

2-3-2 with a coat L1011 cubby

dividing the the 3 seat center unit to a 2-1 configuration with a coat cubby at very low cost.

767 designers were pretty smart too!

1-1-1 on 787, good luck with that