WHY THERE WON’T BE STANDING-ROOM ONLY JETS OR PAY TOILETS, NOT EVEN ON RYANAIR
The Wall Street Journal, 7 July 2009
There are two reports scuttling around the Internet about standing-room-only airplane flights. Don’t believe either one.
A private Chinese airline says it would like to offer bar-stool type seating to pack more people onto airplanes. And lest any free publicity slip away, Ryanair jumped on that bandwagon. Chairman Michael O’Leary told a U.K. newspaper he’s “considering” a plan to offer cheap “bar-stool’’ type seating on some flights.
Exaggerated stories of standing-room seating on planes have come up before, and they’ve been untrue. The New York Times learned that lesson the hard way — in 2006, the paper reported that Airbus was considering offering standing-room “seating” to pack more passengers on jets. The story was retracted.
The problem with all of this is physics. Airplane seats–whatever shape they may be–and the passengers in them have to withstand significant forces to be certified as airworthy. That means they must stay intact against 16 g’s of force, so that the people strapped in have a chance to survive a crash.
Good luck with a bar stool. You’d have to be wearing a heck of a harness bolted to a bar stool, and the stool itself, with one leg instead of four, would have to be darn strong. Engineers out there can debate whether it’s possible, but Airbus said a few years ago there was no way.
In addition, airplanes are certified for a maximum number of passengers, based largely on the ability to get everyone out quickly through emergency exits. Low-cost carriers in Europe and Asia typically toe those limits already. You can’t significantly change the seating density without adding more emergency exits.
In fact, the maximum number of passengers allowed on the Boeing 737-800, the plane Ryanair flies, is 189. Ryanair’s seating on its 737-800s: 189. Mr. O’Leary can’t add more people.
Cheap airlines seem to be falling over themselves trying to get free coverage that reinforces the notion of their cheapness. For Ryanair, one story after another about the silly things the airline is “considering” doing to passengers simply advertises the notion that Ryanair has low-cost tickets. Want a cheap flight; go to the Web site of the guy who has the reputation for being the cheapest, right? Why bother buying advertising when you can just get newspapers and television stations to spread your brand message for free?
Mr. O’Leary got so much free advertising by suggesting he’d install coin slots on airplane toilets that he seemingly couldn’t stop himself. After his company said no, in fact there was no plan to make passengers pay to go, another round of stories surfaced with Mr. O’Leary saying he actually was really serious about it. Really. Seriously. No kidding.
