Budget Airline Blog

The newest cost-cutting venture from budget airline Ryanair is to get passengers to stand during flights in order to squeeze more people onboard.

By making passengers squat on stools, albeit with seatbelts around their waists, Ryanair estimates it would increase capacity by 30 per cent while slashing costs by 20 per cent.

Chief executive Michael O’Leary has held talks with the plane manufacturer Boeing about designing an aircraft with standing room, an idea initially developed by China’s first private airline, Spring Airlines, who have described the arrangement as akin to ‘bar stools’.

This new proposal follows a series of increasingly far-fetched cost-cutting ventures from the airline, who last month announced plans to make passengers carry all their own luggage up to planes instead of checking them in.