Budget airline easyJet has signed a deal with Recaro Aircraft Seating that will see all its new aircraft fitted with SL3510 economy-class seats over the next five years. In an initial phase, 2,500 seats will be installed in a total of 14 A320 aircraft, beginning in April 2013.
The slimline seats, trimmed in grey with orange accents, complemented by a new carpet design and orange aisle lighting, will be manufactured at Recaro's Polish production facility. The SL3510 was chosen due to its simple design, with over 100 fewer parts than the previous seat, with a combination of foams used to aid comfort. The seat was also chosen due to its light weight, which Recaro claims will save 600kg on each aircraft.
“We are very pleased that, with our special economy class seat SL3510, we have been able to win easyJet as a new customer”, stated Andreas Lindemann, chief sales officer at Recaro Aircraft Seating. “Weighing only about 9kg per seat, it is lighter than the product that the airline has been using up until now. Thanks to the Recaro seats, each aircraft will be almost 600kg, i.e. 26%, lighter than before. This very low weight will help the airline to reduce fuel burn with corresponding reductions in CO2 emissions.”
easyJet's annual fuel bill is around GB£1.2bn. The annual fuel saving on the 14 aircraft with new seats, combined with the reduction in fuel burn resulting from sharklets on eight planes and lightweight trolleys on all 214 aircraft will be GB£2.7m, according to the airline.
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