Would You Fly Standing Up to Save Money?

Airbus first revealed the great idea in 2003, trying to get a 20% increase in passenger numbers. Thankfully, the idea stayed on paper. Fast forward to 2010, and Michael O’Leary, the famously cost-cutting CEO of Ryanair, proposed “vertical seats” on his low-cost airline.

O’Leary talked about ripping out the last 10 rows of seats in a Boeing 737 and installing a standing area. These “seats” would look like padded backrests and handrails, sold for as little as £5. Ryanair was already known for considering pay-per-use toilets and other outrageous cost savers. (Yes, he really floated coin-operated lavatories and even a “fat tax” for overweight passengers around the same time. SJWs would have a field day with this today.)

Ryanair's CEO was one of the first to suggest vertical seats

Until 2018, the standing seat was mostly talk and sketches. That changed when an Italian aircraft seat design firm, Aviointeriors, rolled out a physical prototype. At the 2018 Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, they debuted the Skyrider 2.0, a saddle-style, half-standing seat that really put visuals to the concept.

You’re effectively “riding” the seat like a cowboy rides a horse, hence the name. The design squeezed the space between rows down to a tiny 23-inch pitch and proved that innovation isn’t always a good thing. For comparison, even the tightest regular economy seats today are around 28 inches in pitch. Maybe riding an actual horse would be better. Media outlets called it inhumane, and people joked about airlines charging for oxygen next. Unsurprisingly, no airline ever placed an order for these.

Which brings us to the latest developments. In mid-2025, multiple news outlets ran stories suggesting that as early as 2026, some low-cost carriers in Europe plan to introduce standing cabin sections using the Skyrider 2.0 seats. The reports claimed that the redesigned seats have passed required safety tests and received at least a tentative nod from regulators, so a few brave airlines want to be first-movers in offering super-discounted “vertical class” tickets. Could the long-discussed standing seat finally become a reality on commercial flights?

Ryanair publicly denied that it has any plans to introduce standing seats in the near future, despite the viral rumors. Even Aviointeriors clarified: the Skyrider is still just a prototype.

The proposed design for vertical seats

For budget airlines, the equation is simple: more passengers + lower costs = cheaper fares and higher profit. A standing seat cabin theoretically ticks both boxes. By packing 15 or 20% more passengers into the same aircraft, airlines could spread their costs across more tickets and offer ultra-low fares. We’re talking flights for €1–€10 in some scenarios. That kind of pricing is catnip to airlines like Ryanair, EasyJet, Spirit, Frontier, Wizz Air, and others that compete on rock-bottom fares.

Executives like O’Leary have always been obsessed with squeezing out every penny of cost. Over the years, airlines have already monetized or eliminated a lot of “frills” (free meals, free bags, even free printed boarding passes in some cases). The physical seat itself is one of the last frontiers of cost reduction: if you can make seats smaller, lighter, or fewer in number, you save money.

The Skyrider’s selling points align perfectly with those goals: each perch is half the weight of a normal seat (fuel savings), has fewer components (maintenance savings), and you can cram more seats in (more paying customers per flight).

If you’re asking my opinion, I’ll tell you that you have nothing to worry about. If the idea hasn’t been implemented in the past 15 years, it’s not going to happen now either. Here’s why:

Safety Regulations Every passenger seat on a commercial aircraft has to meet strict safety standards. In the U.S., the FAA and in Europe, EASA mandate that seats withstand forces of up to 16g (16 times the force of gravity) in a crash scenario. They also must allow for rapid evacuation of the plane within 90 seconds, among many other requirements. And of course, these would only be in the aircraft’s cabin within certification limits: you can’t just throw 300 people in a plane designed for 180. Emergency exits limit the total headcount, so an airline can only use standing seats to rearrange space, not to exceed the max certified passenger number.

Comfort and Health: Even on short flights, asking people to remain upright on a tiny saddle for an hour or two is going to be a hard sell. Airlines already face backlash for tight seats; now imagine the public relations firestorm if an airline literally makes you stand the whole way. There are concerns about fatigue, discomfort, and even potential health issues like circulation problems (DVT risk might be higher if you’re sort of immobilized in an awkward position). In trials, they’d have to ensure that even an elderly or less-fit person could handle the semi-standing posture without keeling over or risking injury.

International Laws: There’s an EU mandate in progress to set minimum seat dimensions for passenger comfort and health (a result of debate over ever-shrinking legroom). If/when those rules come into force, they might indirectly outlaw something like Skyrider by requiring a minimum pitch or seat size that a saddle couldn’t meet. So the regulatory winds might be blowing against extreme micro-seats in general.

For an airline to make money, it’d need enough people choosing this option regularly. There’s always going to be that one backpacker who’s going to take it for the price, but that’s not enough to break even. People don’t want to be treated like human cargo, and the health concerns are never going to go away.

No airline has committed to buying, so Aviointeriors has not gone through the full (very expensive) process of certifying the Skyrider. No certification, no commercial use. It’s not going to happen either.

Bottom line, you have nothing to worry about.

You’re never going to find me reviewing these torture devices, because it’s never going to happen. Regulatory concerns aside, the PR storm against any airline is enough to stop any of them from seriously considering this topic. Even Ryanair isn’t willing to take the heat when it comes to this.

The topic keeps coming up because of our own morbid fascination with asking, “How low can low budget get?”, but the next time you see headlines like this, you know nothing is going to happen. And even if it does, there’s always regular Economy to opt for.