'Standing' seats in airlines: To fly or not to fly?

If offering economy seats wasn't enough to fill up seats and generate revenue, the airline industry has a new proposition to make money from passengers -- "standing seats". The Skyrider 3.0, a new design that would see passengers almost standing for the duration of their flight, was presented at the Paris Air Show by Aviointeriors, earlier this week.

Traditional economy seats take up to 31 inches for leg space, while Skyrider takes only 23 inches, which in effect increases the seating capacity, or standing capacity. This way, airlines can accommodate more passengers per flight.

But is thinning the seat space really the answer to woo cost-conscious flyers? The controversial seating originally debuted in 2010, but due to structural issues, it prevented the design from ever being used. The second version which premiered in 2018 with an evolved design, featuring a pole to keep the seat in place, too didn't find many takers.

This new edition is pole-free; Gaetano Perugini, engineering adviser at Aviointeriors, told CNN Travel, that 2.0 and 3.0 present two different ways in which the seat could be installed and put into practice.

Perugini says there's been a lot of interest in the seat, although no one has bit the bullet just yet and ordered them.

Twitter users didn't wait to latch on to this airline novelty:

And finally:

Even Perugini acknowledges it's not necessarily an enjoyable experience, but he reckons for short haul, say a brief hop across Europe, it might work.

"I will be honest, I don't think that somebody is happy to stay eight or ten hours in this configuration," he admits.

"In the short haul, if you want to save money [...] you can hold this -- not fully comfortable position -- for a couple of hours. I think the majority of the people will accept this on a couple of hours flight, a three-hour flight," he told CNN Travel.