Testing Tiny Airplane Seats

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Earlier this week I blogged about the Skyrider airplane seatsbeing marketed by Aviointeriors, an Italian company which supplies seats to many major airlines.

These new seats have only 23-inches of space from seatback to seatback, whereas most coach seats have at least 30 inches.

The key is that the Skyrider seats are saddle-shaped and pitched slightly forward, so that the knees of long-legged people start to fit under the seat in front of them.

I decided to check them out for myself at the Aircraft Interiors Expo Americas in Long Beach(yes, there is a show just for airplane seats) and I interviewed Aviointeriors' Fredrik Meloni.

Meloni suggests that if people are too big to fit in the seats, they "have to lose some weight."

You can watch the interview here.

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But CNBC producer Jeff Daniels, a trim 300 pounds, managed to fit himself in.

Getting into the seat was more of a challenge, and it's unlikely the tray table will stay down for long...but once settled in the seat, he said it wasn't bad.

We were not able to test how the seats perform in turbulence...

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