French aircraft seat manufacturer Sicma, part of Zodiac Aerospace (stand A236), is launching its new business-class seat with a different angle at the Dubai air show.
"The Horizon business-class seat is something very different to other seats," says Jean-Marie Daout, senior director of business development. "It's a new concept as the seats are at a 12° angle towards the window. The idea is you can take an existing layout, put it at an angle and this allows the passenger to be on a full flat bed, and give more leg room.
"There is no passenger space lost on the aircraft and it allows the passenger the small perk of having a better window view too."
Although primarily a seat manufacturer, the company is also displaying its new brainchild for the in-flight entertainment market, which has a launch customer in the region thanks to an order from Royal Jordanian Airlines, which will take delivery of the systems in October 2010 for installation in its quartet of Airbus A340-200s.
"Our seat integrated technology halves the weight, cost and power demands compared with the traditional approach, and offers enough processing power to support brand-new entertainment options such as 3D games," says Daout.
Sicma says its seat integrated technology puts all of the available content into every seat, storing right under the passenger's fingertips in the seat display unit (SDU).
"It is capable of being mounted in the seatback or on a fold-out arm, the SDU is essentially a standalone PC with a high-resolution 10in [255mm] screen, a 1GHz processor, 1Gb of RAM and a 250Gb hard drive - enough for 85 films," says Daout.
Source: Flight Daily News
