The Recaro Hybrid Seat Show – Economy Class and Beyond at Recaro Aircraft Seating
To Stuttgart and Schwabisch Hall
In this trip report:
- An Invite to Germany
- Testing and Paperwork
- Off to Heathrow, Terminal 5, and the South Galleries Lounge
- BA920 London Heathrow to Stuttgart (Club Europe)
- The joy of German Immigration, Into Stuttgart and the Novum Hotel Rieker, Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof
- Off to Schwabisch Hall, qubixx stattemitte Hotel
- Economy Class and Beyond at Recaro Aircraft Seating
- The inauguration of their new customer facility
- The Recaro Hybrid Seat Show
- Exploring the Crash-Test facility
- Back to Stuttgart and the joy of pigeons
- Off to Stuttgart Airport
- BA921 Stuttgart to London Heathrow (Club Europe)
- Welcome to Brexitainia, The Premier Inn Heathrow
- Off Home again
- Innovation is the driver
Time to spend some time examining what Recaro Aircraft Seating was showing off – and what’s new in the world of seating.
They hybrid seat show from above.
Other Recaro seating products some of you might be familiar with.
And some you might not be…
Express Seats
Sometimes, airlines and lessors need to turn around cabins when aircraft are being returned from lease, or for a basic interior when. This is where Recaro’s lines of Express seats come in.
They come into three programmes:
- SPRINT – Two-month delivery
- SWIFT – Four-month delivery
- SMART – Six-month delivery
The seats offer cost efficiencies in weight, as well as a very short lead time. These can be pre-fitted with basic options (in terms of configuration, seat dressing, etc), to allow for pre-certification where possible, or a very quick certification as needed (within the delivery time-frames).
The easiest way to think about the programme is this: you’re sending back an aircraft to a lessor shortly. And you want to keep the seats that you bought for your airline. The SPRINT programme would allow a basic seat interior to be fitted as part of the hand-back programme to the lessor.
Similarly, if you’re a lessor, it’s a quick way to refresh a cabin with minimal lead times, so when an aircraft returns from lease, a new interior can be fitted and be deployed to a new customer quickly.
The BL3710/SL3710 – now regional friendly.
The SL3710 seat was introduced two years ago at AIX. Well, the time has moved on, with the seat being re-engineered for the Regional Market, with KLM initially taking delivery of the SL3710 with KLM – Royal Dutch Airlines. In doing so, it has opened Recaro up to the offering of the SL3710 as a regional seat for aircraft and stepped into new territories to fit the seat – both as a factory-fitted option or as a buyer-fitted option.
The SL3710 – winning the budget operators
The SL3710 is taking the place of the hearts of operators who want low-maintenance seats that weigh 9kg or so.
In terms of comfort, there is a reasonable amount of legroom at 29”. I’ve covered in depth before, with the big customer recently being Frontier Airlines.
The long haul classic – the CL3710
We’ve talked about the CL3710 at length – mainly as it is a rock-solid long haul seat (in fact, I saw some being manufactured for two different airlines during my visit).
It was on display, as airlines are still interested in the seat and how to deploy them into their fleets.
However, a successor is in the wings….
Advancing long haul economy comfort – the CL3810
The evolution of a seat is an important thing – with Recaro showing innovations to its long haul seat before the world changed. Well, it seems some of those lessons have been taken forward, with the CL3810.
For cost-conscious airlines, the CL3810 will have one feature they may want – and that’s due to its lower weight, with the older version being 12kg. The new seat cuts that by 1.5kg. Over the lifetime of a seat and aircraft, multiplied by the number of seats, that can add up to savings quickly.
In terms of living space, it offers 1” extra in terms of shin space, 1” extra of knee space. IT is configurable with an Increased seat width up to 18.6”, whilst offering space for IFE equipment for a Widescreen monitor up to 13”
The seat can be used for multiple roles – either as an Economy Class seat or as an Economy pLus/premium economy seat in the long haul cabin.
It is also available to be used both in narrow-body aircraft as well as wide-body units. This can be seen with the launch customer of the seat – Qatar Airways – who will use this on the Airbus A321neo.
A new long haul seat- the CL6720
Recaro has worked on its CL6710 business line, with a new variant – the CL6720. As usual for a business class seat, it is configurable to the last.
In the units shown, they are flat-bed convertible seats in a staggered formation to allow customers to exit the seat step-free.
Increased storage space is shown on the demo units, taking cues from other designs out there at the moment.
Contorols
In terms of numbers, the seat comes in at 85kg, It offers a 78” long bed in a 42” seat pitch layout.
A launch customer of the seat has been confirmed – with China Southern taking the seat. It will be interesting to see what customisations they will offer.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Recaro Aircraft Seating kindly invited Economy Class and Beyond, as a guest to their facilities, offering a stipend to assist with expenses.
All opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and are not directed by Recaro Aircraft Systems.
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