Sack out below

[Ralph Jones]

Airbus is offering sleeper modules that can be swapped into A330 cargo holds: http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/11/news...eds/index.html

[Russell Holton]

Something isn't adding up for me. I'd think the only cargo hold big enough to hold those would be a freighter. If I'm right, I'm not sure how much business sense it makes to use their freighters at night for passenger use. Also, it would be a very low passenger load, so the ticket prices would be really high.

The only convertible airplanes I knew about did PAX by day and cargo by night. But that was short hop stuff.

[Ralph Jones]

The A330 fuselage is 18 feet in diameter, so these should fit under the passenger floor OK. The idea is to sell bunk access as an add-on to the ticket price; the bunks don't have to hold the whole passenger load, just those who paid extra.

What it doesn't seem to address is where the passengers' baggage would go.

[Larry sreyoB]

The A330 is a pretty good sized airplane.

The interesting part is how they'll handle certification. Number of F/As. Safety equipment. Ect.

[Russell Holton]

The idea is to sell bunk access as an add-on to the ticket price; the bunks don't have to hold the whole passenger load, just those who paid extra.

Seems like in practical terms, it would end up being a benny for First Class. Not enough bunks to sell to more than a handful to the cattle car crowd. And I'd think the add-on price would have to be pretty steep to be worth displacing that much fright capacity.

I like the idea, but I doubt if it would be at a price point I'd be interested in.

[Terry Carraway]

I think the lost revenue from less freight will be the killer of this idea. Part of the growth of baggage fees was due to the revenue from freight.

I don't see that much market for Business or First passengers, as they already have seats that turn into beds. And most economy passengers would not spend the money, or if they did, they would be in Business class.

And the whole barracks kind of feel will probably turn off many. Better would be enclosed pods like those Japanese sleeping kiosks.

[Stephanie Belser]

It'll give the passengers a place to relax from having to sit on bicycle seats.

[Reams Goodloe]

Steph - those are clearly tractor seats, not cycle seats..... !!!
Can we get some good discout fares with those ?
Better yet, can they make a version with cycle seats, so we can get a two hour ride/workout in during a flight ?

Reams

[Robert Dubner]

Cycle seats. Foot pedals. Pedals connected to...generators.

We can't expect the passengers to generate enough power to propel the aircraft. Physics sets limits. A trained cyclist during a race can generate about 400 watts. Three hundred such passengers would generate about 120 kilowatts. So, it would take all those passengers about 50 minutes to charge a Tesla Model S with a 100 kWh battery, which has a full-charge range of about 300 miles.

In other words, three hundred trained cyclists could do a reasonable job of keeping a Tesla Model S running, since fifty minutes of charging gets you about six hours of cruising. But a transport aircraft uses substantially more power; pedaling passengers wouldn't make a dent in that.

But they could power, say, the entertainment system.

[Mase Taylor]

"But Dad, I don't wanna go to London..."
"Shut up and pedal faster."

[Stephanie Belser]

More than enough power to charge up a person's devices. So they can eliminate that feature from new airplanes and, if someone needs to charge up their device, they can truck their happy butt down to the pedal-powered charging stations.

(Unless, of course, the main reason for a USB-charging port on the airplanes is so they can vacuum the contents of your phone. Or use the CPU for chemtrail-related computations....)