If you ask the average person about their least favorite aspect of air travel, we bet that most of them would mention that rushed and crowded boarding process. There’s just nothing more annoying – or dangerous! – than getting whacked in the head with an oversized bag that someone is furiously trying to stuff into the overhead compartment!

And though every airline handles the boarding process differently, we have to say that we haven’t noticed that one is cutting down more precious time than the other. That’s why we were excited to learn about an innovative business that, we hope, will completely change the way we get on an airplane.

Side-Slip Seat is a company that has managed to find a way to create more space on a plane, all without sacrificing capacity. The big idea here is that the boarding process takes so long because airplane aisles only allow one person to walk through at a time. This, of course, causes slow-moving gridlock during a time when passengers could already be comfortable seated.

In a video by TODAY, Kevin Van Liere, the president of Side-Slip Seat, shows host Jeff Rossen just how the company has fixed this crowding issue in airplane aisles.

Basically, the Side-Slip seats are built to fold in on themselves in order to optimize space before passengers settle in. If an airplane is equipped with this special technology, guests would find that the aisle seat has been shifted closer to the window, covering the middle seat like so:

This minor change allows both the left and right sides of the cabin to board at the same time, potentially cutting the process’ time by 25 percent, and, because time is money, an estimated $700,000 for the airlines each day!

When each row is ready to sit down, the passenger can, with a simple push of a button, slide the aisle seat away, so that the middle is then ready to go.

Of course, flight attendants would have to alter the boarding process just a bit to optimize the special seating. For the technology to work best, passengers holding a window seat ticket would board first, followed by the middle and the aisle seats. This would give this first passenger ample time to get their bags stored.

Now, we do have to say that this process does take a bit of teamwork on the part of the passengers, but it’s nothing worse than what many have to endure these days on airplanes…

You see, once all of the window-seat folks are finished up, each would have to press that button in order to release the aisle seat, so that the middle appears. Not so bad!

Don’t you wish you would have thought of this invention?! To see the Side-Slip Seat in action for yourself, be sure to click on the video below. We hope we see these guys on the next flight we take!

What do you think of the Side-Slip Seat? Do you think that it could cut down on boarding time? Do you have any ideas to optimize air travel? Tell us all about your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below!