AviationGeeks.com - Ryan Air´s Standing Seats

Ryan Air has caused an upset in the travel industry by announcing that they were planning to install semi-standing/vertical seats in its aircrafts. The seats are manufactured by Aviointeriors and will allow for a pitch of only 23 inches. 

The manufacturer is calling the seats SkyRider and is already receiving interest from other airlines, such as the Chinese low-cost carrier, Spring Airlines, since the seats were introduced at the Aircraft Interiors Expo Americas 2010. The passenger will sit in a saddle like seats in a semi-standing position and the seatbelts will be fastened over the shoulders. The seats are expected to be tested next year.

The manufacturer describes the seats as being “designed and engineered to offer the possibility to even further reduce ticket prices while still maintaining sound profitability, which, even with a dual or three class seating arrangement, will allow maximum certified passenger capacity of the aircraft.”

Ryan Air has already removed the recline mechanism and seat pockets to allow for more space and less maintenance. At the moment Ryan Air´s seat pitch (distance between a point on one seat and the same point on the seat in front of it) is only 30” compare to 32” at Southwest and mere 29” at Easy Jet. With the new seats, Ryan Air will get a seat pitch of only 23”, which allows for more rows of seats.

Ryan Air plans to use the vertical seats on flights of less than 1 hour and 30 minutes. The last 10 rows will be removed and made way for 15 rows of the SkyRider. This could increase capacity by up to 40 percent. The story is that the airline will also remove the 2 lavatories from the back of the aircraft to allow for few additional rows, but it´s unlikely to be accepted by the Aviation Authorities.

With the new seats, Ryan Air expects to be able to offer fares as low as £4. They also plan to charge £1 to use the lavatory and expect that the money generated from that will pay for the vertical seats.

And the always environmental Ryan Air have said that the carbon footprint will be smaller as the new seats are lighter and more people can be fitted into the aircraft.