DUBAI: Another budget airline boss has said he is considering removing all seats from the firm’s planes and making passengers stand.
VivaColombia CEO William Shaw told the Miami Herald he hoped making people stand would help to drive down fares, as they squeezed in more passengers into each flight.
And he said this would ultimately make air travel available to Colombia’s working classes and budget holidaymakers.
“There are people out there right now researching whether you can fly standing up – we’re very interested in anything that makes travel less expensive,” Shaw told the Miami Herald.
“Who cares if you don’t have an inflight entertainment system for a one-hour flight? Who cares that there aren’t marble floors… or that you don’t get free peanuts?” He added.
This is not the first time an airline has considered standing sections in aircraft. Airbus considered the concept of passengers being braced in vertical seats in 2003.
And Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary suggested standing areas on his company’s fleet in 2010.
O’Leary had described the standing seats as “bar stools with seatbelts.” The controversial CEO went on to question the need for seatbelts on aircraft altogether.
“If there ever was a crash on an aircraft, God forbid, a seatbelt won’t save you. You don’t need a seatbelt on the London Underground. You don’t need a seatbelt on trains which are traveling at 120mph.”
But no one has yet managed to convince the regulators. The Civil Aviation Authorities (CAA) have refused to approve any plans for vertical seats anywhere in the world.
Colombia Civil Aviation Director Alfredo Bocanegra told RCN radio: “People have to travel like human beings… Anyone who had ridden on public mass transport knows that it’s not the best when you’re standing.”
