Design: Inez Torre
In the last few years, airline seats have been shrinking while passengers' waistlines have expanded. Recently, the airline industry has started to take a closer look at how it should address the issues raised by larger fliers.
Airbus / European Patent Office
This month Airbus filed a patent for "a re-configurable passenger bench seat" to accommodate passengers of all sizes.
Airbus / European Patent Office
Adjustable, detachable seat belts would ensure that all passengers are locked in, regardless of their build.
Airbus / European Patent Office
The seating can be adjusted to accommodates families (or miniature adults, as this illustration from the patent seems to suggest).
Airbus / European Patent Office
The Airbus patent is one of the more sensible new seating suggestions to be revealed in recent years. Read on for seven terrifying airline patents we're less keen to to see in action.
Anastasia Beltyukova/CNN
With airlines under pressure to slash fares and cram in ever more people without extending cabin space, passengers might soon be stacked on top of each other -- literally. This is our hellish version. Click on to see what real aviation engineers are coming up with.
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Airbus has offered a chilling glimpse into what the future of air travel might hold with a patent that envisages two rows of seats layered on top of each other. The patent states that the design "still provides a high level of comfort for the passengers" with seats that could be reclined 180 degrees.
European Patent Office
At least with the stacked-rows design passengers will actually be sitting down. Not so much with the so-called saddle seat, another Airbus patent, which would require them to assume a semi-squat position during a flight.
Anastasia Beltyukova/CNN
The seat (our imagined version shown here), which wouldn't look out of place on a bicycle, has no headrest, with back support also in limited supply. The patent admits that the increase in the number of seats is achieved to the detriment of the comfort of the passengers.
Anastasia Beltyukova/CNN
Fully-standing spaces were proposed by Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary a few years ago, although they haven't been rolled out. "We have no plans to trial or introduce standing flights," an airline spokesperson told CNN. If our rendition is even close to accurate, that's a good thing.
European Patent Office
Those for whom flying means getting lost in a book or a film while politely ignoring their neighbors probably won't enjoy the designs from Zodiac Seats France.
Anastasia Beltyukova/CNN
Zodiac Seat France's Economy Class Cabin Hexagon consists of a tightly packed jigsaw of alternating backward and forward seats, making it difficult to maintain the number one rule of traveling on any form of public transport -- avoiding eye contact. Or so we imagine here.
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Not to be outdone, Boeing has filed its share of eccentric patents, such as the "upright sleep support system." Its purpose is to help passengers rest during a flight by letting them lean face-forward into a cushion that has a hole to accommodate eyes, nose and mouth.
Anastasia Beltyukova/CNN
Its purpose is to help passengers rest during a flight by letting them lean face-forward into a cushion. Another cushion supports the chest. Both are deployed from a backpack attached to the seat.

Story highlights

Airbus has filed a patent for a "reconfigurable passenger bench seat"

Adjustable, detachable seat belts can accommodate passengers of all sizes

The debate about how to cope with obese travelers has become heated in recent years

CNN  — 

Travel can be tricky for passengers of larger girth. For years, travelers have been getting wider, while airline seats have been getting smaller. Not to mention the fact that heavier fliers are too often rewarded with ridicule from their thinner cohorts.

Airbus might have a solution: replace individual seats with rows of benches.

Airbus / European Patent Office
The re-configurable bench seat: One size fits all.

The aircraft manufacturer – which in 2013 spearheaded a campaign to make 18-inches the industry standard for seat width – has filed a patent for a “reconfigurable passenger bench seat,” which could accommodate not only larger passengers, but small children as well.

Adjustable, detachable seat belts would ensure that all passengers are locked in, regardless of size.

The patent, which was published last month, comes out at a time when the debate about how to deal with obese travelers has become particularly heated.

Congressman loses battle in war on shrinking airline seats

In the last few years, obese passengers have been denied boarding, shamed in online forums and named as the cause in an Etihad lawsuit (a passenger sued for being forced to sit next to a “grossly overweight” passenger).

In 2013, Samoa Air started charging passengers by weight, and introduced an XL class for larger passengers. Last year Uzbekistan Airways decided to weigh passengers “for safety.”