Who's Ready to Fly Lying Down?

If you're the kind of guy the pops an Ambien before climbing aboard a transatlantic flight, you're definitely not alone. Long flights are so miserable that most people only want to sleep through the ordeal. But if you're not the pill-popping type, getting decent sleep while sitting at nearly a 90-degree angle can be next to impossible.

Many first class cabins have lie-flat seats now, but the four-figure price is out of reach for most travelers. Is there a way to bring lie-flat seating to the misery that is coach? Lufthansa thinks there might be.

The key to getting enough travelers into the seats is to stack them like bunk beds: Lufthansa's digital mockup shows them three high throughout the cabin, looking very much like a military barracks. This is either very cool or extremely scary, depending on your point of view. As Consumerist wonders: What's to keep a "shower of crumbs and baby powder" from raining down on people in the lower bunks? Lord knows you want to be on the top of this stack.

While there's clearly a lot of work to be done on this idea (which customers have expressed a sincere interest in), there has at least been some basic attention paid to the issue of safety, and the beds will begin and end the flight as regular seats, "converting" into the bunks sometime after takeoff. Meal service is another issue. The conversion system sounds like a recipe for disaster so far (where do people go while the beds are made?), but maybe they can get the kinks worked out of this idea, you know, before we run out of oil.

Would you want to fly this way? 

LINK: Welcome to sardine air