A “LIE flat” option for passengers looks set to be trialled as an alternative to the often unpopular sleeping pods aboard NorthLink’s ferries. Transport Scotland’s interim head of ferries Chris Wilcock made the announcement at Tuesday’s meeting of the external transport forum. The results of the trial could then be fed into the designs for the new freight-flex ferries, which are continuing to progress. No further information about what the “lie flat” option could look like was provided at the meeting. He said if there were “18 lie flats in a lounge” which normally accommodated 30 sleeping pods, they would have the “ability to recoup that figure elsewhere”.