Spring Airlines wants to make flying even less comfortable

In the latest addition to "brilliant ideas that China likes to try," Spring Airlines is now considering selling standing-only tickets to passengers on their flights. The budget airline currently has only 13 planes in their fleet and cannot meet growing demand for more flights from more passengers.

In the new model, passengers would be sitting on something resembling a bar stool with seat belts tied around the waist. The president of Spring Airlines likened the experience to "catching a bus, with no seat, no luggage consignment, no food, no water."

The plan would supposedly help the airline cut 20 percent of their cost while allowing 40 percent more room for passengers.

If this is all sounding familiar, that's because Airbus tossed around the idea of standing seats back in 2003. Then they scrapped it, only to have the New York Times run a front page story on it in 2006. Ironically, Spring Airlines purchases their planes from Airbus and has asked them to help formulate a model that would accommodate the standers.

The plan has yet to be submitted to Chinese aviation regulators so we are not sure if such a model would conform to airline regulations. If it were to pass, it might not be the worst idea in the world- while no Chinese airline has a fabulous reputation for comfort, people buy standing tickets and suffer through much longer journeys on trains every day.