Airbus Plans Stacked Seating For Passengers

European aerospace giant Airbus has unveiled a new split-level seating design which would see passengers stacked on top of each other.

The plane manufacturer has filed a patent for a mezzanine arrangement aimed at making better use of cabin space.

The plans, drawn up by an Airbus design team in Hamburg and lodged with the US Patent and Trademark Office, envisage the rows would alternate between floor level and a second elevated level.

Each of the seats would be able to be reclined into a horizontal position, allowing the passenger to lie down.

Stairs or a ladder would give access to the mezzanine seats.

The designers say the layout would be more suited for use in business class.

The seats could also be angled so passengers are not looking at the backs of the seats in front of them.

In the patent filing, Airbus said: "In modern means of transport, in particular in aircraft, it is very important from an economic point of view to make optimum use of the available space in a passenger cabin.

"Passenger cabins are therefore fitted with as many rows of passenger seats as possible, which are positioned with as little space between them as possible.

"In order to still more efficiently use the space in a passenger cabin aircraft (the patent) proposes to position an elevated deck structure on a main deck floor in the passenger cabin of a wide-body aircraft for providing a mezzanine seating area in a substantially unused upper lobe of the aircraft fuselage."

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) added: "It would therefore be desirable to provide a passenger seat arrangement that permits optimum use of the space in a passenger cabin of an aircraft or other means of transport, but still provides a high level of comfort for the passengers using the seat arrangement."

However, it is unclear if the design will ever make it off the drawing board and into an aircraft.

Airbus file some 600 patents a year in order to protect its intellectual property.

Earlier this year, Airbus filed patents for a new supersonic jet, dubbed "son of Concorde", which could fly from London to New York in just an hour.