Colombian budget airline may remove all seats to make passengers stand
A budget airline from Colombia is considering plans to remove all seats from its planes to make passengers stand.
VivaColombia is hoping the move will drive down fares to open air travel to working class Colombians and budget holidaymakers by allowing more people to be squeezed onto each flight.
The no-frills carrier annouced that it is adding 50 more Airbus 320s to its fleet to capitalise on the nation's growing tourist market.
VivaColombia’s founder and CEO William Shaw told the Miami Herald the airline was looking into vertical travel options.
“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,” he said.
"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?”
The idea isn't new, with Ryanair proposing standing areas on its fleet in 2010.
At the time boss Michael O'Leary described the standing seats as "bar stools with seatbelts" and questioned whether seatbelts were even needed.
He compared planes to buses at the time.
"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 travelling at 120mph.”
Civil Aviation Authorities disagree however, and vertical seats have not been approved by regulators in any country so far.
