At Economy Class and Beyond, we’ve always liked how Acro Aircraft Seating has worked on its products. We’re going to take a look at the Acro Series 9 – the newest in the airlines seating family
There are four variants of the Acro Series 9:
- Series 9FB – The fixed-back variant, launched by Jet2
- Series 9R – A recliner-seat variant
- Series 9 Regional – A regional variant seat, with its first launch customer of Deutsche Aircraft
- Series 9 Long Haul – not on public display, but a long haul variant of the seat
The Acro Series 9 takes a lot of lessons from previous seats – the Series 3 and Series 5, and improves on them
We’ll start with the Series 9 Fixed Back, which as the name suggests – is a fixed back economy seat. The seat features an integrated headrest that offers support for passengers of all sizes, with the classic Acro back on the seat. This gives a lot more space when sat, whilst not intruding into knee space.
The seat also comes with a weight starting at 7.5kg. In its basic configuration, there’s not much left behind, with a synthetic leather cover a single-leaf tray table with cup recess, and Aluminium armrests with disabled access for those seats that need it.
It can also be equipped with Bespoke covers, Hooks, Cup holders, literature pockets USB-A, USB-C, USB A and C outlets, and PED holders, amongst other options.
It can be pitched as needed, with the reduced seat pitches that airlines love a this time
Moving onto the Series 9 Recline, it takes the fixed back seat, and as the name suggests. adds a recline function.
Interestedly, you can work out how much weight that function adds to a seat, with the starting weight for the Series 9 Relcline coming in at 8.5kg. Again, it can feature the basic configuration listed above, or an extended configuration
As can be seen in this variant, there is a multi-directional headrest which is available as an option.
Moving onto the Series 9 Regional, which has Deutsche Aircraft as its lead customer for its D328 family, it offers the Series 9 seating in a three-abreast setting, indicating its target for regional aircraft, or those which require new seating as -part of a retrofit.
The Series 9 Regional still is rather lightweight – with starting weights coming in at 7.9kg a seat. Again, it can be configured and specified as per an airline’s requirements.
Finally, the last seat – but no pictures sadly – is the Series 9 Long Haul variant, which takes the lessons learned of the Series 9 seat, but adjusts it for a long haul mission – with the bucket style back shaved back for the long haul mission. It provides comfort and reconfigurability.
But there’s something more important that Acro Aircraft Seating has been working on – sustainability.
How much of a seat can be recycled?
Acro Aircraft Seating has been working on sustainability. As well as the weight of a seat (a key consideration as it reduces the amount of fuel, being able to work out what can be recycled at the end of a seat’s life is more important than ever.
With the Acro Series 9, their engineers have managed to hit a point, where a 98.83% recyclable structure is possible. That offers both good karma, as well as the ability to claim back CO2 credits when the seat finally reaches the end of its service life.
In Quotes
Continued seat Innovation that supports sustainability is vitally important for our industry. At Acro we will relentlessly innovate and drive sustainability across our products, processes, people, and our facilities
We are making progress and delivering the world’s first 99% Recyclable seat is just the beginning. Sustainability across all areas of the business will remain a key priority at Acro
Evolution continues
At Economy Class and Beyond, we love to see both innovation and evolution, seeing how a company takes a successful product and evolves the concept. Acro has had success with its seats – notably the Series 3, Series 5 and 7 – all of which have performed well in service with airlines happy.
It is good to see that the lessons learned have gone into a family of seats that scale from a low-cost “pack them all in” to a high-end product that suits the long-haul mission.
There are possibilities for an airline looking to deploy a consistent product through the economy classes with the Series 9 family.
As usual – we’ll be keeping a close eye on Acro Aircraft Seating and the work they do.
Economy Class and Beyond was a guest of Acro Aircraft Seating at Aircraft Interiors Expo.
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