Airlines consider offering standing room in lieu of seats

By Jack Brummet, Aviophobia Ed.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Airbus has been very discretely trying to drum up interest in a standing-room-only option to Asian airlines.

Passengers would stand against a padded backboard, held in place by a harness. In short, we'd have a plane full of papooses!

The airlines have already been squeezing passengers further (is that even possible?) by ordering new seats, with far thinner backs. Instead of adding an inch or two of legroom, they are, of course, adding additional rows of seats.

One airline was even considering a proposal by Boeing to essentially forgo seats and seatbealts in favor of a system where passengers stand so snugly together that they insulate each other from any turbulence or jostling. One proposal included the option of having passengers travel nude, using Crisco or another emollient to reduce friction and chafing. "Essentially, we would be taking a leaf from the penguin's book," explained Sheila Houlihan, a vice-president with Boeing's Public Relations group, "I mean, you saw March Of The Penguins, didn't you? These guys know how to huddle!"

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Aviophobia: Part 28 - Flight attendant intentionally starts fire on jet

Dave Kolpack of the Associated Press reported today that a disgruntled flight attendant--Eder Rojas, 19--smuggled a lighter aboard an airplane and started a fire in a bathroom, forcing an emergency landing. Rojas was angry because he had been assigned to routes he didn't like.

The Compass Airlines flight carrying 72 passengers and four crew members landed safely in Fargo, N.D. on May 7 after smoke filled the back. No injuries were reported. Read the entire sordid story here.
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Aviophobia, Part 26

As December approaches, I am taking stock of my last year. Incredibly, in the last year, I have traversed America on 70 different airplanes. You may recall, in the early weeks of the year, I was locked in the throes of acute chronic aviophobia.

Even when I lived in New York City, and San Francisco, it was all I could muster to get on a 'plane at all once a year to travel home to Seattle. Now, I routinely take multi-legged trips all over the map, switching 'planes, and hopping on turbo-props from one airport to the next.

Only a year ago, I needed Xanax, Vallium, or any sort of phramaceutical psychic soother to get close to an aiport. And those aids were often bolstered with a bloody mary, screwdriver, or glass of wine. The weeks leading up to a flight were filled with dread, and an increasing sense of doom the closer I got to boarding the "aircraft." Today? I barely even think about it until the night before I depart. Yeah, I usually only sleep a few hours that night before, but I have become sanguine about the flights. On the 'plane, I bring a load of distractions: whatever book I am currently reading, a Nintendo DS to play games, a laptop computer (that I almost never use in flight), a sketch pad or canvas to draw on, and a notebook for stories and poems.

It mostly works. I don't even think about my stainless steel hip setting off alarms and the subsequent indignity of friskings and patdowns. It's just part of the deal now. I am extremely uneasy in flight, but I've mostly sorted it out. I'll be traveling to England and Pune, India in the next couple of months, so I shouldn't get too cocky. . .but for the moment, I've tamped down the extreme anxiety and fear of flying to a level that's at least tolerable. And oddly enough, I am happiest on a turbo-prop, flying close to the ground, with the propeller whirring about five feet from my head. What's the deal with that?
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