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Airplane stand-up seats get new design from manufacturer

By Wole Oyebade
18 April 2019   |   4:05 am
Proposed stand-up seats on planes could be a step closer to reality. That's because an Italian seat manufacturer has honed the design...

Proposed stand-up seats on planes could be a step closer to reality. That’s because an Italian seat manufacturer has honed the design of a new type of seating that’s so upright, passengers have to stand up to use it, more or less.

Last year, foreign media reported on Aviointeriors’ second version of the Skyrider seat – and this week at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, it unveiled another improved prototype.

The new design, called the Skyrider 3.0, is very similar to the previous incarnations of the seat.

However, one major difference is that it does not have a pole in between the seats to connect them to the floor and ceiling, as the previous version did.

A more subtle tweak to the prototype is the introduction of a coat hook. As with the Skyrider 2.0, Aviointeriors claims that its design will enable carriers to fit 20 per cent more people into a cabin, as legroom will be diminished from around 28 inches to 23.

It said in a statement: “The Skyrider sitting surface is higher than a standard åseat. This height, in conjunction with other features, allows placing rows of Skyrider at an installation pitch of 23′ with an acceptable comfort for the passenger.

“While a standard economy seat ensures the maximum capacity only in all economy class arrangement, the above characteristics permit to fill the aircraft cabin with the maximum allowed number of passengers (per type certificate) in a multi-class configurations.”

Aviointeriors says the design could comply with the seating arrangement on an Airbus A321 and A320 and a Boeing 737. All three aircraft are usually used for short-haul flights.

The company added that Skyrider 3.0 weighs 50 per cent less than standard economy seats and has a reduced number of components for “minimum maintenance costs”.

Its claim is that this seating represents “the new frontier of low-cost tickets and passenger experience”.

It’s not known whether any airlines have bought the seating yet. In 2010 Ryanair conducted a poll of 120,000 people and found that 80,000 of them would consider upright seats if they were free, while 42 per cent said they would use them if the fare was half that of a traditional ticket.

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