One of my bugbears about travelling by aeroplane is being allocated a seat next to some lard bucket who can barely squeeze into their own. Result – my private space is invaded, an ever-increasing problem with the obesity crisis. Some good news came out of the Farnborough Air show which finished last Sunday – cloud cover meant that we had the nuisance of excessive aircraft noise without the transitory pleasure of seeing the culprit.

The Bombardier C100, previewed at the show, comes equipped with middle seats that are 19 inches wide, for the heavier Passenger, the manufacturers diplomatically state, an inch wider than seats currently used on many planes in operation. An inch doesn’t seem much but anything is better than nothing.

At my age the desire to relieve myself is frequent and unpredictable which poses another problem for air travel. There are too few carseys and those that are in operation have a queue as long as your arm to be of any use in relieving that sudden urge. At the air show Airbus announced that they are considering introducing booths with two or three urinals in them to help the male passengers go about their business more quickly and to ease congestion on the sit down jobbies.

Two great ideas – let’s hope they take off.

Filed under: Humour, News Tagged: Airbus to instal urinals on planes, Bombardier C100, company fits larger seats for air passengers, Farnborough Air show