The Zephyr premium economy airline seat
The headline here is quite misleading.  This seat is intended to compete with premium economy seats, not with economy.<p>These seats produce the same cabin density at today's premium economy, while trying to offer a business-class-lite experience.<p>Airlines might buy these, because if they can differentiate premium economy a bit more from regular economy, they might be able to sell more of it.<p>Most airlines are installing only 25-30 seats in their premium economy classes, even on big birds like 777-300.  If this makes the class more appealing, they may be able to install 40 seats or more instead.<p>The fact that they are stacked, and that they don't lie flat, will keep them sufficiently distinct from true business class not to cannibalize business class sales.<p>But, these seats won't leave room for overhead lockers.  The seats have an amount of small-item storage that will feel extremely generous in Premium Economy, but without the lockers, there's no storage for bigger bags.<p>This is also not an unsolvable problem, but airlines are exceptionally risk-averse and change-averse, so it'll take some real convincing.<p>And then there's the accessibility and safety issues with the ladders to resolve and the question of how people will feel about the low ceiling clearance (will it feel premium?  especially to people who aren't regular travelers)<p>I do hope some airline tries it.  There is a ton of room to make air travel different, but airlines are all very fearful, staid entities.  For the most part, airlines consider themselves bold if they buy the same Recaro seat as every other airline, but in unique color or fabric combination.