James S.H. Lee, director at Paperclip Design Limited and an expert in seating design, hopes his project—the Butterfly seat—will someday be a part of commercial flying. The Butterfly would allow flight attendants to change a seat from economy to business very quickly in between flights before you board. Both business class and economy would still exist, but the ability to make more economy seats on one flight, then more business class seats on another, could be key for the airline.
“I used to work for the airlines—and from a business point of view, flexibility would bring huge benefits both to operations and revenue,” Lee says. Every flight has a different demand for first class and economy. There are a lot of business class demands for a flight from London to New York, for example, he says, but on a flight to the Caribbean? Not so much. So seats go wasted. With convertible seating, you would be able to purchase what you want, and the airline could change the seats to make it happen (and make money by doing so). Lee says he plans on building prototypes early next year—then seek development by mid-2017.