Boeing Considers In-Flight Showers

The things those Boeing designers think of when it's late at night and all the managers have gone home...

How about a shower inside a commercial passenger aircraft? That's their latest secret weapon in the battle for supremacy with Airbus.

The concept has its fans -- especially those who take those long, long flights like New York to Hong Kong, an 18-hour epic journey that, these days, ends up with wrinkled clothes and failed deodorant.

Now, an in-flight shower would present something of a problem. Water is heavy. Heating water takes energy and that takes fuel. Line a couple of hundred grungey passengers up for a wash and you're talking about a lot of water. Hot water at that.

But the working concept here isn't so much a shower as a... a spritz. Instead of a long, hot soak, you get a 12-minute "misting," according to Boeing spokesman Doug Ackerman.

There wouldn't be any towels. The shower stalls would dry you off with blow dryers.

Worried about foot fungus and other creepy-crawlies common to communal bathing? Designers have thought of that, too. The stalls would be automatically disinfected between customers.

FMI: www.boeing.com