Would you be interested in buying an entire row of seats for your family and then diving the space given to each member according to their size? How about paying a extra in order to have space in between you and your neighbor? A British design firm is aiming to change the way that we think about airplane seating, introducing a concept called morph that can change seat configurations on the fly.
Today a friend sent me a link to an article on the Verge that highlights Morph, which is an airplane seating concept that allows for seat configurations on a plane to be changed in order to meet the needs of passengers. Instead of an 18 inch clearance between seats, the Morph concept would allow airplane seats to open as widely or become more narrow depending on the needs of the passengers on the plane. In the picture below, you can see that one passenger has a 20 inch width seat while another has their width reduced to 16 inches. I would imagine this could be very appealing to families where parents are traveling with kids. I’m sure Director Kevin Smith would be a big fan of Morph as well.
Watch this 3 minute video and come to your own conclusions on whether you think that this concept would work in the air.
My Thoughts on the Morph Seating Concept
While I think the idea is cool, I don’t find it to be very practical. To no fault of the designers, I just find it unlikely for these seats to ever be adopted by the airlines. Airlines already have enough trouble booking tickets, keeping airplanes clean and meeting their on time requirements for flights. To introduce the need to modify the design of a seat each time that a new plane is boarded seems like it would cause even more gridlock in the boarding process. Perhaps that could be remedied by making the seat change process seamless and computerized, but that introduces even more problems in the process due to technology integration.
On the other hand, there are certain scenarios where I would gladly pay a little extra in order to have more room. I am just not sure how much extra I would truly be willing to pay. I certainly wouldn’t pay 50% more for extra room.
My other concern is the quality of these seats. It seems that the fabric would become stretched with frequent usage, which may make the seats uncomfortable over time. With configurations changing several times a day on domestic flights, I just don’t see how the seats could last very long.
As for comfort, I wouldn’t know if this is more comfortable without actually sitting in one of the seats. The seats remind me of the Herman Miller Aeron Chair that was the symbol of Silicon Valley startups in the early 2000’s.
One of the things I like is that the seats don’t recline backwards, so they would be less annoying than current seats. The ability to adjust certain aspects of your seat could make the experience more comfortable for travelers.
How About You, What Do You Think?
Would you fly in these seats? Would you pay extra for more room? Would this be a solution for your family travel woes? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts in the comments. If you have extra time, reading the comments on the Verge article are very entertaining.
I could actually see this being used in Europe as a cheap upgrade for intra-European business class
Great point. Since intra-European business class is usually just an empty seat, adjusting for more room would be a nice feature.
In addition, adding more business class seats by demand would work well too.
I suspect this will be a nightmare for the boarding process. Imagine everyone spending several minutes adjusting their seats rather than just sitting down. Several people might need the help of a flight attendant to help them adjust the seats. Boarding will take forever….
I agree without some sort of pre-configuration this could take forever to board. There is probably a away to gain efficiency in that process (like specifying seat width at booking), but this is probably a long way away from ever being adopted.