I recently read how airline cabins are getting more and more grotty of late. This is due to having fewer cleaning staff on hand, shorter turnaround times for cleaning, and passengers now bringing aboard more of their own food. This got me thinking on how we might improve the airline seatback.

First of all, to help keep things cleaner, it would be nice if we could divide the stuff the airline puts into the pocket from our own stuff. I would like the airline to put in less stuff -- we really don't need a skymall and inflight magazine at every seat, those can be fetched like the other magazines. The safety card, airsick bag and headpones (if present) could be put in a small plastic pouch that goes in the seat pocket, making it clear what's yours and what's the airlines. This makes it easier for you to clean out your stuff, including garbage, or for the airline cleaning crews to identify what's permanent in the pocket and quickly toss the rest.

But there are some more dramatic improvements we could make here. Many years ago, I adapted one of those book holding stands meant for tables with a book light and velcro straps to hang it on the seat in front of me. (Back then velcro on the seat top was common.) This allowed me to hang my book on the seat in front of me, which I found made for much more comfortable reading. I find reading paperbacks on the plane requires contortion to get the book in good light, or simple arm-tiring labour to hold the book up. My back of seat mount was great, and the airlines could either provide those, or provide a "mounting point" into which a passenger-brought unit could be mounted. The mounting point could be where the tray locks, or on the back of the tray.

The mounting point also could be useful for the design of special laptop holders. Using a laptop in narrow-pitch coach seats is a pain, and a serious pain if the person in front of you wants to recline. In some cases you can't use your computer unless you recline too. Some laptops are better designed for this, moving their screen hinge inward, at the cost of reducing wrist rest space.

For many people, airline use is one of the most important functions of their laptop, so a little special equipment or redesign could make some sense. In this case, a mounting point on the seat could hold a laptop mount, which would put the screen on the seatback at a comfortable eye level. Should the person forward recline, you would want to be able to adjust the mount to keep the screen at the right angle. For laptops that can't flip their screen, the keyboard etc. would just hang below, unused.

Instead, you would connect a remote keyboard/mouse device, which could then sit on your lap or the tray for comfortable use. And you would even have some room for papers on the tray. (This requires the mounting point to be above the tray.)

The airline could ideally provide or rent this small keyboard/mouse station, RFI insulated. In fact the arline one need not be so small, it could be full sized. Or stations in the airport (like the flight DVD rental folks) could rent the laptop mount and keyboard/pointer for drop off at the next airport. You want this because it defeats the purpose of having a small laptop to have to carry on a keyboard almost as big as the laptop.

Of course, laptops could be designed not only to hook into the mount, but have a detatchable keyboard/mouse unit so you don't have to carry anything extra. Makes the laptop a bit bigger of course, but not much. Be nice if you could use bluetooth. Right now in theory bluetooth is not allowed but it's in a safe band so it should not be a real problem.

This would still be useful in Economy Plus, even though there you don't have the space crunch problem. A nice keyboard and an eye-height screen is how we like it on the desk. In Biz class, the seat in front might be too far away.

Another alternative would be provision of flat panels in the seat backs, with a VGA/DVI jack. Of course many airlines already are putting flat panels there, but only at TV resolution. Bump to XGA or better and now laptop users could keep their laptop on the table and look at the seatback. Many laptops even have a dual screen mode, so you could get double the screen real estate. Indeed, this is even valuable with a plain VGA class display in the seatback as already found. A port for that screen is also handy for the many people who use their laptops to play DVDs, though for those you want a 720x480 resolution screen which I don't yet see in seatbacks.

If course power at the seats is a big plus, and some airlines do this, though UAL does not yet provide it in coach. The power should be in the seatback, not the armrest, since the thing we want to power is usually on the tray table.

A snap-out, aimable book reading white LED on the seatback would also be very useful. Aside from being cheap and consuming less power, this more localized light is less likely to interfere with sleepers and movie watchers. And by being aimable, it makes reading the book much more comfortable.

Let's get to it, airlines.