Times are tough in the aviation sector, but I did not think a budget airline would plan to fly passengers standing to save costs.

I know doctors warn that sitting is as bad as smoking, because we sit all the time, at the workplace, in the car to work and at home in front of the TV or surfing on the laptop or smartphone, and on airline flights.

They say all this sitting and our sedentary lifestyle is leading to various deadly ailments such as obesity, that leads to diabetes and heart disease, and these can be equated to smoking which kills a lot of smokers every year.

The airline, Viva Colombia, plans to remove all seats in their aircraft and by making people stand, the airfare will become cheaper as you can stuff in more people and the planes will be much lighter and will consume less aviation fuel. “We are doing this so everyone would be able to afford flying,” says the CEO, or in words to that effect. He said experts are considering “vertical travel” options and researchers are looking into whether people can fly standing up, maybe like in the scary sci-fi movies where interstellar passengers are put to sleep in standing pods.

An airline from the sub-continent recently reportedly flew some passengers standing to Madinah instead of offloading the overbooked passengers like the American airline United does by beating up its passengers and forcefully dragging the fliers off the plane.

I am not sure whether the story about the Asian airline is fake news, but it was hard to imagine the passengers partaking of dates and ‘qahwa’ presented by the smiling stewardesses while holding on to each other every time the plane hit turbulence as they passed through the dry, desert air.

I feel Viva Colombia should go one further and have treadmill desks for the passengers so that they can “walk” and talk while eating and drinking and people would be much healthier when they disembark.

Lazy passengers who refuse to walk on the treadmill may have to share the treadmill desk with a marathon runner or a hyper kid.

Of course, it would work only for short flights from Dubai, to Delhi, Uttar Pradesh or Haryana for instance, and all that treadmilling will give you strong legs to run like the wind if needed, when you land.

But “vertical travel” will not work for long-haul flights of 14 hours to Sydney or New York, when you need to sleep. I suppose over time, people can learn to sleep while standing and being strapped into their vertical pods. If my cat can sit up and sleep without toppling over, the human species can do it too.

Since this is a budget airline there will be no luxury beds but there should be small ‘apartments’ or ‘suites’ in the aircraft so that expatriates can share, as they share villas on the ground. They can share the galley to whip up a quick bowl of Maggi noodles, but of course not fry fish as it would require fumigation of the aircraft every time the plane lands.

For a small addition to the fare, babies and the elderly can be put in the overhead bins as hand baggage and laptops will anyway be not allowed in the future.

Since everyone will be flying in a vertical position there will be no need to fight for elbow space on the arm rests. You would also will not have to worry about being seated next to an obese gentleman who oozes into your seat over time. For entertainment, you and your family can clock Air Miles on the treadmill counters and the airline will give awards immediately such as a free round-the-world ticket to the lucky winner, and you can enjoy the trip on your feet.

Mahmood Saberi (@mahmood_saberi) is a freelance journalist based in Dubai.