2014 Seating Innovations
Share
Expliseat’s titanium slim-line model.
2014 has been a big year for the topic of airline seating: We’ve seen fights break loose at 35,000 feet over the right to recline, innovative seat design using new materials, lofty ideas regarding reconfigurations, and of course the continual tweaking of pitch and width figures as airlines try to strike that delicate balance between the bottom line and their passenger’s comfort.
Aside from the multitude of new slimline seating options, with the Expliseat leading (or is it tailing?) the pack at a lightweight 4 kg – which we’ve featured in the latest issue of APEX Experience Magazine – we’ve seen new concepts emerge that could redefine how we collect ourselves within airline cabins in the future.
Thomson Airways proposed some novel ideas with an announcement today that outlines their plans to revolutionize leisure travel within the next five years. These ambitions include a variety of initiatives, but pertaining to seats they will be offering family booth seating and duo-seat options.
Image courtesy of Thomson Airways.
Family booth seating concept: Located at the rear of the aircraft, this configuration is designed for families of 4-6.
Image courtesy of Thomson Airways.
Duo-seating concept: Three seats are transformed into a comfortable cocoon for two, where the middle seat becomes a table and mood lighting can be adjusted to suit the sentiment. We predict a high request rate to move that table off to one side or another so couples can canoodle during their flight.
The latest Embraer E2 cabin design by PriestmanGoode will adopt a staggered seating configuration in the first class cabin, although it will follow the economy track system to eliminate the need for bin change configuration between classes. This allows for maximum seating flexibility, but without the initial customization most airlines would require to differentiate their premium cabin environments.
Embraer E2 cabin from PriestmanGoode. on Vimeo.
Economy Plus seating sections are also becoming increasingly popular on airlines, as the need for premium class options diminishes with the shrinking budgets of the common business traveler, which we covered in June’s “The Economy of Class” article in Experience: The Content Issue.
While many are tolling the alarmist bell when it comes to the future of economy aircraft seating – especially with patents like the Airbus stand-up bicycle seating circulating the web – the continual emphasis by manufacturers on sourcing new materials and reimagining seating design and configurations indicates that the delicate balance between passenger density and comfort will be maintained for the foreseeable future.