Chinese Airline Considers Standing-Room-Only Flights
Over three years ago, the New York Times ran a cover story alleging that Airbus had been quietly pitching a seatless airliner concept to Asian carriers for some time. The article included an illustration of what the concept might look like. It wasn't pretty: The "seat" resembled the offspring of a stretcher, standing upright, who had mated with a roller coaster. Airbus vehemently denied the claim, saying they had considered the idea in 2003 but had since scrapped it. Days later, the Times was forced to print a correction basically retracting the whole thing.



Today comes news that Shanghai-based Spring Airlines wants to remove all the seats from its jets. The low-cost carrier has 13 Airbus A320s, but the lengthy wait for new aircraft is making it difficult to keep up with surging demand. “The process of plane making is really long,” says Zhang Wuan, Spring’s executive director. “We already ordered 14 new jets. But some of them will only be delivered next year. And you have to wait for at least 5 years to lease a plane, and it is also very expensive.” [Full Article]