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“Seat optimizers” are in great demand

A comfortable passenger seat is more than just the physical connection between passenger and airplane. Ideally, it is also a connection between the passenger and the airline and inspires customer loyalty. Seat producers are facing a difficult task: They have to merge comfort, function, design and efficiency. Aerotec author Barbara Stumpp wanted to know how they manage to achieve this feat again and again and entered the world of “seat optimizers.”
The new seating systems for passenger planes are not only lighter, but also easier to handle. Both of these benefits will pay off for any airline.

Acro Aircraft Seating offers two current Economy Class innovations: The ‘Superlight Passenger Seat’ and Recaro Aircraft Seating based on seating type BL3520, which recently received the Crystal Cabin Award 2011. The new developments can be summarized in three words: light-weight, slim and comfortable. This is achieved by smart material selection and perfect design. Both companies’ designers focused on the plane seat backrests and managed to reduce seat weight by about 30 percent, reaching approx. 10 kg per seat.

“Our seat consists of a two millimeters thick shell-shaped composite panel to ergonomically support the passenger’s back,” summarizes Chris Brady, manager of Acro Aircraft Seating. It is covered in a 15 mm thick layer of foamed plastic, which is glued to the seat to form a single component. “Even if the plastic is compressed to 10 mm under the passenger’s weight, the seat will remain soft,” says Chris Brady. The special design reduces the number of parts in the seat to 63, making it easier to service. The airlines need to stock up on fewer spare parts.

Solutions inspired by bionics

Recaro’s designers created their solutions inspired by bionics. “We replaced the usual plastic foam at the backrest core with mesh upholstery to clearly reduce foam thickness,” reports Axel Kahsnitz, chairman of Recaro Aircraft Seating’s management. “The seat panel is made of new materials as well.” Again, the seat is both thin and comfortably soft. After the results of a university survey on optimized backrest shape, initial customer Lufthansa can rest assured in the knowledge that its passengers will not lack seating comfort in spite of narrower seats.

Economy Class has been much more purist than Business Class on long-distance flights up to now. In particular parents with young children would nearly despair here. Recaro’s SkyCouch will put an end to this. “A SkyCouch comprises three adjacent seats. Arm rests disappear into the backrests, a leg rest folds up and forms a level surface with the seat,” reports Axel Kahsnitz. Parents and children can play on this unbroken area, or two adults can stretch out on it.

Stoutness may, however, become a problem. The space between the rows of seats has not changed. Since the SkyCouch blocks potential space for more passengers, the respective passengers will probably have to pay half again the price of a normal seat for this special feature. Since April 2011, this seating solution has been flying with Air New Zealand’s Boeing 777-300.

Economy Class passengers should experience not just comfort but also wellness during long-distance flights. Think about Economy-Class syndrome, a lower leg thrombosis caused by narrow seating arrangements that prevent movement during long-distance flights. INNOVASEM has developed a concept for electrical motors in the seats to improve circulation by vibration in the leg and thigh muscle area. Sustainability is considered as well: “The seat frame must bear accelerations of up to 16g, enable lower weight due to lower density and offer a visually attractive design,” Diego Fernando Ospina Loaiza, project manager at INNOVASEM, summarizes the requirements. The selected material is a composite of jute fiber and polyester. Development work is still underway and expected to take a while longer. Everyone probably knows that sleeping on an Economy Class long-distance flight is far from a comfortable experience. If Economy passengers are granted reclining seats, they are stacked on top of each other for economic passenger densities. Many have puzzled over this.
Seats can be fully reclined

Mexican company Airborne Hotel Systems now cooperated with design studio Rigoletti on a new, patented solution. “The two-level seat concept provides every passenger with a seat that can be fully reclined. The plane retains its passenger capacity or even increases it,” says David Martínez Celis from Airborne Hotel Systems (ABH).

The system utilizes the space between the aisles up to the ceiling in planes with two or three aisles. ABH configurations were designed for the A380, A340, the new A350, Boeing 747, 777 and 787 planes. Of course, the seats are also secure when raised for starting and landing. An integrated ladder will take passengers to the upper level. The seats can be operated well by the crew and the passengers have sufficient storage space.

Airlines are to profit from the latest developments as well as passengers. In particular Bishop’s FSAS system should make airline operators happy. “The ‘Flexible Seat Arrangement System’ (FSAS) is the first fully automatic system in the world that enlarges or reduces seat distances in a complete airplane cabin within 10 to 15 minutes without removing seats,” says Frank Nußbäumer, team manager of Internal Projects at Bishop.

The newly developed seat rail is at the system’s core. Seats can be arrested on it. “Every seat is equipped with a slide and integrated coupling system to freely slide the seats along the rail. Every seat can be controlled individually via a central pulley drive,” explains Frank Nußbäumer. The new seat rail design is 10 percent lighter than the traditional one, making the FSAS nearly weight-neutral in total.

This kind of system would not only save lots of working time – it also offers airlines additional economic opportunities. For example, the seat distances can be adjusted to the respective number of passengers between flights by moving the seats with the new seat rail. Some few seats can be manually removed or added as required. “The airlines can thus generate an additional profit of 8,400 € to 17,600 € per day,” says Frank Nußbäumer.

Another development the airlines will just love is the ‘Speaking Seatrail’ by PFW Aerospace. Of course this seat rail will not actually talk, but it facilitates seat re-equipment. The engineers made use of so-called hollow waveguides – metal tubes with rectangular, ellipsoid or circular cross-section to convey electromagnetic waves in the gigahertz range with very little loss. They are a stark contrast to cables.

In the end, a seat rail is nothing but a tube that can be turned into a hollow waveguide easily. Small receivers are installed at the rail apertures at the bottom of the seats. “The seat rail has grid bores at intervals of one inch. When the seats are re-equipped according to a changing number of Business- and Economy Class passengers, they just need to be locked in place – the infotainment connection will be established automatically,” Andreas Kaufmann of PFW Aerospace rejoices.

This solution prevents the usual cable chaos while saving weight and costs. Transmitter and aerial are less than one centimeter apart from each other at the seat rail, permitting a transmission output of one hundredth of a WLAN network and one thousandth of a normal cell phone grid to save energy.

About 10 GB data per second can be transmitted in this hollow waveguide. That corresponds to 120 HD-TV channels. “Our Speaking Seatrail is now fully internet-capable at more than 10 Gbit/sec,” reports Andreas Kaufmann. Right now, it is only demonstrated in the lab. Search for targeted applications and the matching partner is underway.

Seat weight should slowly near its lower limit. Smart solutions for re-equipping cabins, however, still offer many opportunities.

Dr. Barbara Stumpp

German  Summary

Ein komfortbaler Passagiersitz ist nicht nur die physische Verbindung zwischen Fluggast und Flugzeug, sondern im Idealfall auch das Bindeglied zwischen Passagier und Airline im Sinne von Kundenbindung. Die Sitzhersteller haben keinen leichten Job: Sie müssen Komfort, Funktionalität, Design und Effizienz miteinander „verheiraten“. aerotec-Autorin Dr.  Barbara Stumpp wollte wissen, wie ihnen das immer wieder aufs Neue gelingt und ist eingetaucht in die Welt der „Sitz-Optimierer.“ Ihr Fazit: Die neuen Sitzsysteme für Passagierflugzeuge bringen nicht nur weniger Gewicht auf die Waage, sondern auch Arbeitserleichterung im Handling und damit für die Airlines Vorteile, die sich in Cent und Euro rechnen. Der deutschsprachige Beitrag ist nachzulesen auf: www.aerotec-online.com/aero0111seat

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