One of the leading airplane manufactures, Airbus, has filed a patent for a new seating arrangement that would literally see passengers piled on top of each other.
The patent filed on 1 October, outlines a split-level seating plan where a passenger at a lower level will have another person sitting directly above them, on a more elevated platform.
In a document filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the company states:
"In modern means of transport, in particular in aircraft, it is very important from an economic point of view to make optimum use of the available space in a passenger cabin."
In a nod to the current cramped conditions, it added: "Passenger cabins are therefore fitted with as many rows of passenger seats as possible, which are positioned with as little space between them as possible."
"In order to still more efficiently use the space in a passenger cabin of an aircraft, [the patent] proposes to position an elevated deck structure on a main deck floor in the passenger cabin of a wide-body aircraft for providing a mezzanine seating area in a substantially unused upper lobe of the aircraft fuselage."
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Seats on both levels will have the ability to recline in a similar manner to what we are used to now and the company claim its new arrangement will provide "optimum level of comfort."
Should you wish to put some distance between yourself and the other sardines in the cabin, Airbus say the recline mode will increase the space between both decks of passengers. Comfort is obviously in the eye of the beholder.
A spokeswoman told the Daily Mail that the existence of a patent doesn't necessarily mean it will be adopted by aircrafts.
She said: "Airbus files some 600 patents each year in order to protect its intellectual property.
"This doesn't necessarily mean that all of the patents are adopted on an aircraft. Therefore, we are not in a position to further discuss this design."