Airline accidents remain low

There’s good news for white-knuckle fliers: 2015 was another safe year for commercial air travel worldwide.

For the entire year, the accident rate was the equivalent of only one major accident for every 3.1 million flights, according to the International Air Transport Association, the trade group for the world’s carriers.

“In terms of the number of fatal accidents, it was an extraordinarily safe year,” said Tony Tyler, chief executive of the trade group.

The number of major accidents was down nearly 12 percent compared to 2014 and the number of fatalities caused by those accidents dropped to 136 deaths compared with 641, the trade group said. About 3.5 billion people flew safely on 37.6 million commercial flights in 2015.

The accident rate does not include the crashes of Germanwings 9525 and Metrojet 9268 because those disasters were classified as deliberate acts. But even when the fatalities from the Germanwings and the Metrojet crashes are included in the calculations, the number of aviation deaths in 2015 was nearly on par with the five-year average of 504 deaths per year.

Airbus seeks patent for new seat

The trend for coach seats in the airline industry has been to squeeze leg and hip room to pack as many paying passengers as possible into each cabin.

But now, a division of the European airline manufacturer Airbus has applied for a patent for a seat design that can offer extra space for overweight fliers.

Airbus is suggesting that airlines use a bench seat, the type of seats you would find in the cars in the 1950s and ’60s.

In a bench seat, all the passengers share the same long seat cushion and backrest.

According to the Airbus patent application, the advantage of a bench seat is that the seat belt can be moved sideways along the length of the seat to fit between two and four passengers.

The disadvantage is that the seat back can’t recline.

In a statement, Airbus said it files hundreds of patent applications each year, adding, “The vast majority of items and processes patented never become fully realized technology or products.”