Economy-class airline seats have remained largely unchanged in their designs over the years. But there are signs change is afoot.
New entrants on the seat manufacturing scene are seeking to shake things up with radical ideas that challenge the status quo and are capturing the attention of judging panels and airlines alike.
Wales-based Rebel Aero, which managing director Gareth Burks describes as being “not only rebel by name but rebel by nature”, is one such upstart. The company has designed a seat it says will “rewrite the standards for space, comfort and safety” by enabling passengers to fold up the base and adopt a standing position during flight to stretch their legs.
The safety aspect comes in the form of a three-point harness, which Burks says was built into the design following the July 2013 crash landing of Asiana Flight 214 at San Francisco. While the majority of passengers survived the impact, many were left with spinal injuries which some believe could have been minimised had the seats been fitted with something more substantial than a lap belt.
By incorporating a pre-certified AmSafe three-point restraint into its seats, Rebel Aero believes passengers will be “more protected laterally” and less likely to hit the seat in front in the event of an impact.
“Personally, I wouldn’t get in a car with just a lap belt and I don’t think anyone else would either,” says Burks.
To enable the seat to transform into what the company calls its “booster” format, the base is divided into two parts. “The rear part is fixed and the front half pivots and folds back onto the rear half,” says Burks. This not only provides a ledge to enable passengers to adopt more of a standing position during flight – it also gives more space inside the rows for when passengers are entering and preparing to exit the aircraft.
“Passengers can stand while taking their coats off, speeding up the boarding process,” says Burks.
Rebel Aero launched its concept for the seat, dubbed S:two, at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg last year. This year it aims to return with a fully- or almost fully-certified seat it hopes will enter service with a launch customer within 12 months. The company is also hoping to pick up a Crystal Cabin award for the seat, after being selected as a finalist in the passenger comfort hardware category.
Another new entrant aiming to bring something out-of-the-ordinary to the aircraft seating market is Germany-based SII Deutschland, with its SANTO Seat – last year’s Crystal Cabin Awards winner in the passenger comfort hardware category.
The acronym stands for special accommodation needs for toddlers and oversized passengers. The seat is designed to fit into the aft section of a widebody aircraft, where the fuselage tapers and there is not enough space for a standard triple seat.
The SANTO seat comprises a standard seat and a seat-and-a-half with a fully retractable armrest. The latter can either be used as an extra wide seat for larger passengers, or as a standard seat with space for a child’s booster.
“The idea is that passengers could be incentivised to be seated in such a location at a more moderate price, rather than pay for a whole seat for a child,” says Erwin Ilias, inventor of the SANTO concept.
Alternatively, airlines could market the seat at a premium to larger passengers who are unable to sit comfortably in a standard economy-class seat. “Airlines are cost-driven and this concept might bring extra revenue,” adds Ilias, pointing out that in normal cabin configurations the area for which the seat is designed is often “lost space”.
“Our aim is to show that we’re thinking outside the box,” says Ilias.
At this stage the SANTO seat is purely conceptual, but SII Deutschland chief operating officer Peter Miehlke says the company is “seeking partners” to build it.
Airframers are clearly interested in the idea of adjustable seats that can be widened to accommodate larger passengers, as evidenced in February when Airbus filed a patent request with the US Patent and Trademark Office for a reconfigurable passenger bench.
In its filing document, Airbus included sketches to show the various ways in which such a seat could be configured. These include seating two larger passengers, three standard passengers, or two adults and two children.
A similar concept was unveiled at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg two years ago by design company Seymourpowell. The “Morph” concept features a bench-style seat with movable dividers to alter the width of each berth.
Whether airlines will take the plunge and install such radically different seats on their aircraft is the big unknown. Aircraft interiors consultant Michael Planey is not so sure.
“I view quirky stuff sceptically. Airlines don’t tend to buy into it,” says Planey. “Airlines prefer simplicity – they’re not looking for bells and whistles.”
While they might not be looking for bells and whistles when it comes to seating, airlines are still showing an appetite for individually-designed social areas such as on-board bars. However, demand appears to be shifting away from the ostentatious, space-consuming horseshoe bars installed by the likes of Emirates and Qatar Airways, towards an area that combines luxury with practicality, and does not eat too far into revenue-generating seat space.
“We’re seeing a broadening of airline customers looking for bars and social areas and we’re working with a couple we haven’t done bars for in the past. But this is not necessarily at the expense of seats,” says Richard Bower, managing director of UK-based AIM Aerospace, which counts Virgin Atlantic and Qatar Airways among its in-flight bar customers.
“While they might give away a row, they want to retain seat count but still have a social area at door number two.” Airlines are increasingly looking to build more practical aspects into their on-board bars than in the past, adds Bower. “If possible, they like to combine [the bar] with practical stowage space, so we incorporate into the design of the bar somewhere to put the carts.”
AIM Aerospace is in the process of being acquired by China’s AVIC. The company is building a new factory in Bournemouth, on the UK’s south coast, to manufacture its premium monuments. The factory, scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, will expand AIM’s capacity by a quarter and enable it to consolidate its aircraft interiors manufacturing activities.
“Our cabin interiors business in Bournemouth was spread around different hangars, so we needed to make that investment,” says Bowers. He describes the aircraft galley market as being “fiercely conservative” and more about aesthetics than “revolutionary ideas”.
Despite this, the company plans to use this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo to showcase new concepts for the door two area of the aircraft.
“The main centrepiece of our stand will be a virtual reality display where we provide visitors with the opportunity to look at three ideas for the door two area,” says Bowers. These include a classic design, a more practical design, and a more luxurious concept along the lines of the Emirates horseshoe bar.
Visitors to the AIM stand will be invited to view these concepts through a pair of virtual reality goggles. Meanwhile, the new wave of seat designers will be hoping that airlines will not be wearing blinkers when they look at their ideas.
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Source: FlightGlobal.com
