by Donald Wood
Last updated: 5:00 PM ET, Thu April 13, 2017
Airplane seating can be notoriously uncomfortable, but a new concept seat revealed at the 2017 Aircraft Interiors Expo in Germany last week should have travelers legitimately concerned about the future.
According to Apex.aero, Mirus Aircraft Seating put its Vision 2030 concept seats on display as a way to showcase the technological advances the company has made using carbon fiber materials to construct its seats.
The concept seats weigh only 8.4 pounds each and are not designed to be comfortable. Mirus officials also said the seats were not designed to be sold, but instead were meant to influence future products in the industry.
The Vision 2030 concept seats have been heavily tested and passed "with flying colors," according to Mirus senior executive James Woodhead. The technology used in making the seats can now be used when building other kinds of seats more marketable to major airlines.
[READMORE] READ MORE: How Airlines Are Getting Creative in Squeezing More Passengers into Planes[/READMORE]
Despite how much airlines would love installing the lightweight seats to save on fuel consumption, travelers should be terrified of the new technology. The room inside planes is already scarce, and reducing the sizes of seats is something carriers continue to explore.
In a report released in 2016, statistics showed that the average seat size of seats on commercial airplanes has shrunk by four centimeters in the past 20 years. While that doesn't sound like a lot, it is a considerable difference for larger travelers.
While Mirus executives said they did not design the seats to be sold, it's just a matter of time before a low-cost carrier gets a bright idea and air travel changes forever.
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