Is more face-to-face contact with a slight increase in legroom coming soon to an airliner near you?
” Airline passengers may be required to sit facing the rear of the aircraft by a new seating layout designed to pack more people in as well as giving everyone more legroom….could add up to 50 seats to each aircraft and increase the seat pitch, the gap between one seat and the seat in front, by four inches (10cm). But they would have to persuade passengers to spend up to 15 hours facing the back of the aircraft and trying to avoid eye contact with passengers facing the other way. People in the rear-facing seats would have a slightly greater chance of surviving a crash landing….The “yin-yang” seating formation has been developed by a British company and is being unveiled this week at an exhibition in Hamburg.” - from the Times of London
Here’s a second story from the Times with more detail and some “psychological” analysis.