Blazing saddles! It's vertical seats

Altitude Aerospace Interiors head of commercial airlines, Baden Smith, said: “The evolution of on-board products has transformed greatly over time, with today’s business class product far exceeding what first class was just 20 years ago.”

Airbus believes that airframers, airlines and lavatory and seat makers need to take into account the demographic changes of passengers, including the increasing overweight, the growing elderly population and the gender balance – with 50 per cent of travellers now being female as opposed to 10 per cent in 1980.

And, of course, there are more and more people travelling by air, so cutting costs is always a focus.

At the show, seats were high on the agenda when it came to cutting costs, with much buzz going around the global media for one Italian company that has designed a new kind of seat to certainly raise a few eyebrows.

Design firm Aviointeriors Group has come up with a ‘standing seat’ concept aimed at filling the aircraft with more passengers on to budget flights.

The new seat, named the ‘SkyRider’, is inspired by saddles used by cowboys.

Passengers sit on the ‘saddle’ at an angle, with their weight taken on by their legs. It allows seats to be overlapped. It offers passengers 23 inches of legroom between them and the seat in front, which is seven inches less than the current average seat pitch of around 30 inches.

The new seat design promises to attract plenty of attention from airlines looking to increase the number of seats in the economy class sections of planes, and passengers would pay less to sit in an area of the cabin installed with the seats.

Dominique Menoud, director general of Aviointeriors Group said: “We feel extremely confident that this concept will have great appeal to airlines for economic purposes.

“For flight lengths from one to possibly up to three hours, this would be comfortable seating. The seat is like a saddle. Cowboys ride eight hours on their horses during the day and still feel comfortable in the saddle. It’s intended as a new basic class seat.”

Whether the seats will get the green light is another question. In July this year, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said his airline would offer vertical seats for as little as £5 each way. O’Leary said he would remove the back ten rows of seats from 250 planes and replace them with 15 rows of so-called ‘vertical seating’.

But the latest idea of such seats has already been dismissed by safety officials of the European Aviation Safety Agency, in Cologne, Germany. A representative said: “These plans are highly unlikely to meet stringent safety approval. To our knowledge, no airlines or other operators have made an application for stand-up seats.”

Gaetano Perugini, Aviointeriors’ director of research and development, who created the seat, said at no point was the company suggesting passengers’ stand. “Even though the distance between seats is extremely narrow, we are talking about seats, not about having passengers simply standing on the floor.” He added: “You are sitting on a special seat, but it is a seat.”

Another new product launched at the show was an ultra lightweight ducting used in aircraft environmental systems, which is also featured on the Boeing 787 and the Learjet 85. 

First-time exhibitor Arrowhead has already clinched a deal with China’s Comac. Arrowhead’s business development manager, Jeffrey Truesdell, said: “We have signed a letter of intent with the Chinese manufacturer to supply the new lightweight ducting for the new 150-170-seat C919. This is great news. We need to re-educate our customers as our capabilities change.”

As ever, galley companies are keen to design lightweight items, too, and the interiors shows are great launching pads for products as proven by Norduyn. After winning the Crystal Cabin Award for its Quantum lightweight trolley, launched in Hamburg, Germany, earlier this year, it has since sealed a deal with LSG Sky Chefs and produced 1,500 trolleys for its partner and main customer.

“The trolley market is 840,000 strong, with 147,000 added each year,” said Patrick Phillips, director of business development. “Using our proprietary composite technology contributes to a 10-year design life verses eight years for traditional aluminium trolleys, while dry ice consumption is up to four times less.”

The trolleys weigh just less than 22 pounds and the company claims it has 45 per cent fewer parts than its aluminium counterparts by eliminating the use of screws and rivets. “The Quantum may have a potentially higher cost than other trolleys but it is offset by the return of investment,” said Phillips.