Passengers struggle for comfort on most planes nowadays, with space increasingly rare.
However, Jet2‘s newly ordered planes will come equipped with new modern chairs that they claim will make flying less painful for those on board.
The airline has 98 Airbus A321 and A320 planes on order, all of will be fitted with non-reclining seats from manufacturer Acro.
TTG report that the airline has said the chairs “provide customers with excellent levels of comfort for their flight, with the added benefits of extra leg room and added space under the seat.”
The seat manufacturers say that not only will the chairs be more comfortable, but easier to clean as well, meaning planes can have a quicker turnaround.
Philip Meeson, Jet2 PLC’s executive chairman, said: “We are extremely proud of the award-winning customer experience that we deliver, and the comfort that we provide customers onboard our aircraft is critical to that.
“We know this seating will be enormously popular with customers travelling with us on their well-deserved holidays.”
Acro boss Neil Cairns added: “The light weight of the sleek new Series 9 is an obvious advantage, but we have combined that with ultra-robust construction and low part count designed to reduce maintenance and facilitate quick turnaround sanitising.”
Jet2 aren’t the only airline to be scrapping the non-reclining seats on board their planes.
German seat makers Recaro are well-known throughout the industry and provide both reclining and fixed position “pre-reclined” seats to airlines.
Their chief executive officer, Mark Hiller, explained why more airlines are opting to fill their planes with the non-reclining chairs.
He told CNN: “The airline can choose a pre-defined backrest angle position within the seat configuration process. This helps to provide either more comfort via increased backrest angle or fulfil special layouts with specific passenger counts.
“The main advantage is increased living space, as a passenger’s living space is not intruded by recline.”
What also makes the non-reclining seats more attractive to airlines is that they’re cheaper because they require much less maintenance.
He added: In addition, there’s the low total cost of ownership — fewer moveable parts on the seat, improved reliability and simplified maintenance — and low weight and cost, with no mechanism, kinematics and so on required.”
The chairs also prevent people from having arguments over reclining, something that often divides opinion.
Some people will even choose to make themselves less comfortable in order to not disturb the people sitting behind them, but their comfort should come second to yours, according to plane expert Ben Schlappig.
Ben has flown more than 4,700,000 miles since he was a teenager, so knows a thing or two about plane etiquette.
In a blog post on One Mile at a Time, he claimed that reclining a seat is a right for all passengers, regardless of who they are sitting in front of.
He said: “For me it’s quite simple. Reclining your seat, when the functionality is available, is a right. After all, the recline button is located at your seat, and not the seat behind you.”
Meanwhile, one passenger had their laptop destroyed when the person in front reclined their seat.
And a design student produced plans for double decker seating arrangements to prevent seat reclining from affecting others..
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