Skift Take
Airlines could easily afford to retrofit all their seats with a $2 armrest fee that every flyer would be happy to pay.
The biggest battle in the air isn't between American Air and United, or British Airways and Ryanair, or even Spirit Air and its customers.
It's the one that happens where two coach-class seats meet.
James S.H. Lee, Director of Paperclip Design Limited, Hong Kong, has received numerous accolades for his designs and won prizes from the aviation industry's prestigious Crystal Cabin Awards, held every year at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg. Among other designs, he has one that could solve the battle for which flyer gets the armrest by giving one to both.
But, as anyone in aviation will tell you, good design takes time to go from the drawing board to the aircraft.
A long time.
Lee's designs range from the simple to the sublime. For example, even as aircraft seats introduced at this year's show eliminate armrests entirely, or others continue to have ever-narrower harder armrests, Paperclip's design provides an easy solution to the quandary of who gets to rest their elbow.
Inspired by the paperclip's shape, the simple armrest design provides two armrests in a single spac
