There are many reasons to hate flying economy. The tiny seats, the inedible food, the fees airlines charge for things you'd get for free in a medieval dungeon. Manon Kühne can't fix any of that, but she's has found one small way to make sitting in 17C just a bit less hellish. She's designed an ingenious head rest that not only makes sleeping in an airplane seat borderline comfortable, it also keeps your head, and your drool, off your neighbor's shoulder.

The Dutch industrial designer, who graduated from Delft University of Technology last year, won the student category at the Crystal Cabin Awards for something she calls HeadRest, a thesis project she created in collaboration with Zodiac Aerospace's Human Factors and Ergonomics Lab.

HeadRest fits onto your seat back and sports two wings that fold out, creating a U-shape around your head. Stretchy fabric spans the wings, forming a "hammock" to support your head and keep you from sliding onto a fellow traveler who's already uncomfortable enough, thank you.

Kühne started the project in December 2014, and from the beginning wanted to make economy class a nicer place. Too many of the innovations in air travel, she says, are "for the happy few" at the front of the plane. HeadRest makes you more comfortable by supporting your head, and by making a cramped seat seem a bit more spacious by blocking your peripheral view of the guy next to you. Kühne designed the piece to be easily retrofitted onto existing seats, and the fabric is removable so it can be washed on the regular.

So when do you get to use one? In a few years, maybe. The award-winning design is a prototype for now, and, like anything going into a commercial airliner, would need to pass all sorts of certifications before appearing on passenger flights. If and when that happens for HeadRest, airlines would do the math that comes with balancing the extra weight (more weight=more fuel), maintenance, and cost against the benefit to passengers. Zodiac can help sway things in your favor, because it owns the rights to Kühne's design. Here's hoping the company is already on it, because neck pillows stink.