What configurations might work best to have the most passengers in, say, a 747 8I?
What safety/regulatory considerations might prevent particular configurations?
Presuming no regulatory obstacles, how many standing-only passengers could be in a 747? How about using stacked beds?
Long haul airliners tend to travel at around 900km/h. What cruise speed is typical of smaller passenger planes?
Something like this?
As you say, the answer is to rip out the seats.
The record number of people on a plane is 1088. It was for an evacuation, so obviously the usual regulations and safety standards were ignored. They landed with two more people than they started with.
I want that movie’s solution to passengers.
Knock them out.
But start right at the door to the airport. Walk in with your ticket pinned to your chest. Lay down, go to sleep. The taxi driver wakes me up right after the luggage is in the trunk at the other end.
The whole plane is luggage compartment. Passengers as luggage too. I don’t care, I am asleep. Do what you will, just don’t leave marks. Maybe I might go astray, but if the system treats me like baggage too, I might have a better change of ending up in the same wrong place with it.
http://makefun.cn/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/10323162_19609995.jpg
except narrower and not as tall. Should also have a special “normal” section for passengers with claustrophobia. Could probably pack more passengers in, and definitely would be WAY more comfortable, especially on long flights, than current sitting arrangements. Wonder if the extra armature etc. would make it too heavy, though.
I don’t know the final answer but keep in mind that a 747 fuselage is about 32 feet tall at some points and over 200 feet long. Most are configured so that there is lots of cargo space on the bottom and one main passenger cabin often with another, more plush, upstairs passenger cabin. You didn’t say anything about cargo or luggage so adding a whole new passenger cabin should be doable if just transporting as many people as possible is your goal. The highest production 747 had seating for 624 people but it should be easy to double that by using the former cargo space, getting rid of the galley and bathrooms and really packing them in.
I believe that you will hit maximum cargo weight (all meat in this scenario) before you will hit the space limitations. A 747 can haul a tremendous payload but maximum cargo weight is about 230,000 pounds. That sounds like a lot but it is only about 1,100 average sized Americans. You might do better in a 3rd world country where people are smaller and people really know how to pack themselves into public transportation. Just make sure that no one tries to ride on top though like they do with the trains in India. It will mess up their hair badly.
Zodiac Seats, the largest manufacturer of airplane seats in the world, has decided to remove any dignity left for people flying in coach with their new design: “Economy Class Cabin Hexagon”.
http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/city/transportation/215055-sitting-coach-gets-worse-zodiac-seats
Good points. I was being flippant, but have also thought about this subject seriously.
A passenger jet has a lot of wasted space in the passenger compartment.
A plane designed for maximum meat storage could have a different aerodynamic shape. If you ignore passenger comfort.
There are designs for high capacity passenger planes, that resemble flying wings. Still a lot of wasted space, as they are not just inert meat transport. But they have passengers spreading out far from the central roll axis. So a passenger could experience more large up and down movements, with the associated need for more barf bags.
But a plane designed for packing in passengers could have some savings in design. For instance, a current 747, with the body slimmed down to barely contain the current number of passengers, would save weight and drag.
Stacked up and laying down seems the best option. But you need methods for passengers to go to the bathroom at least. I am thinking along the lines of those rolling library ladders. Infirm folks get the lower berths.
Personally, I would love to lay down for the flight.
Back in the 70’s the US was evacuating South Vietnamese refugees from various camps in Asia. Los Angeles was a major center for this operation.
The flights would head back from California to Asia “empty” to pick up more refugees. I had been living in Taiwan and was visited my parents in Los Angeles. When it was time to return to Taiwan, I found this incredibly cheap fare to Bangkok. It was much cheaper to fly to Bangkok and catch another flight to Taiwan than to fly directly to Taipei.
I soon found out why the fare was so cheap.
When it came time to board the flight, the first thing I noticed was that there were no markings on the outside of the plane. No airline name, just a large “silver” jet. However, the inside was really a shock. You wouldn’t believe the seats. They were so small and packed together. I guess the average Vietnamese refugee was quite small so they wouldn’t be too uncomfortable in the seats, but for a “regular” American, the seats were way too small. Fortunately, there were many unsold seats and I had a whole seat row to myself.
Compute the Fourier Transforms of all the passengers and load them onto a memory stick. Load airplane with as many such memory sticks as you can fit – should accommodate many thousands of passengers’ transforms. Reconstruct passengers from their transforms at destination.
Or, y’know, computer Fourier Transforms of passengers and just e-mail them.
Due to an unfortunate computer glitch. A plane load of adorable cats with Kim Kardashian asses unloaded at LAX.
Who says you need seats?
I remember a pavilion at the ‘64 Worlds Fair in which a wall with offset shelves was lowered, filled with people, then raised into the box for the movie or whatever.
Yu had one shelf to stand on and another on which you could park your butt. They were at a very steep angle so your head was about 2’ above the one before you.
It wasn’t bad for the 15 minutes the show lasted.
You want cheap? That’s cheap, and you might even be alive when the plane lands.
What do you mean by smaller passenger planes? Smaller jets such as B737s, A320s, E190s etc have a similar cruise speed to the big jets (around 450 knots). On the other hand turbo-props are significantly slower with many cruising slower than 300 knots. From memory the original Dash 8s (100 to 300 series) cruise at about 240-265 knots while the Dash 8 400, which is a significant upgrade to the others, cruises well over 300 knots.
You and me both.
I’m mildly surprised that nobody has ever kitted out a “lying down plane” for routes like Sydney-London, which is generally over 24 hours of bum-numbing torment (including stops) The factor that I suspect is the deal-breaker is embarking/debarking, and in particular, evacuation times.
Also restraint during takeoff and landing. I believe seat belts aren’t as effective if you’re not sitting upright. So you’d possibly need a seat for each bed…in which case you’re probably not going to make it any cheaper than the premium cabins which already exist.
Well load the airplane at a japanese train station…
Get in and move into the middle of the carriage, or we will kick him and push him and squash HIM until his back breaks !
Kick… Ouch ! We aren’t joking, we will squash him until he is as thin as a pancake, unless you all move in to the middle of the carraige… we are serious, move ! Kick !
Poor Him 
just some poor random character who thought perhaps the people were all just going going to move one more step…
… I suppose they could have sex club flights… Couples hooked into a sexual swing setup…
Very little chance of contracting HIV from transfers extra-couple …
Oh dear !
Nah, I can visualize plenty of ways to safely restrain a prone body. The claustrophobic aspect may be a significant factor, though. However, as someone who avoids flying partially because I find sitting in a seat less comfortable than either walking or lying down, count me as another that would totolly prefer a long, narrow pod where I could lie down and sleep for most of the trip.
