At Aircraft Interiors Expo 2024, Stelia Aerospace unveiled its newest product – Opera Essential. We covered the press launch, but now a few weeks have passed…. and I have more than a few thoughts.
Let us take a much closer look.
Steila Aerospace has developed this seat based on the existing Opera platform – which was able to have staggered business class seats from a seating space of 42″ upwards, making it space efficient. The company has taken lessons from this, with the next consideration of “how do we shed weight”?
Business Class seats are wonderful things, offering comfort and privacy. But this comes at the cost of weight, with entry-level seats starting at 80Kg, and heading into 100Kg and beyond – depending on how you configure a seat. That weight has to be carried around on the aircraft, contributing to the environmental footprint – in terms of how much fuel is burned over the life of its installation, as well as its maintenance costs.
And whilst airlines love the sustainability agenda, they love the saving money on fuel agenda a lot more.
Stelia Aerospace’s Opera Essential comes in 65Kg a seat – a 30% saving over current Opera seats.
Where that saving comes from is the electronics, with motors removed, in-flight entertainment wiring looms removed and an Electrical Control Unit, with the electric recline mechanism being removed.
The seat populated. Note the tablet holer arm, as well as a PED holder installed in the table.
Instead, Stelia has developed what they call a “Fast Kinetic principle” seat control. Or what some of us might call a leaver control to release.
You then use your body to slide the seat from a Take-Off-And-Landing position to a flat bed…. and anywhere between.
The Demonstration Unit/In use
Stelia Aerospace showed off a three-seater version, angled at a “window”
The seat – in the stowed position.
The entranceway
The seat itself
Alligned with some geometric thermoplastics to add a visual point of interest
With an iPad mounted in the IFE Holder, looking down to the seat.
With the manual motion to push the seat into an upright or flat position, it’s an interesting concept – like Stella’s Celeste Short-haul business class seat, which has an equally novel mechanism to activate the recline mechanism.
It’s a seat that will require you to build up those core muscles (or butt muscles too – they could work, providing you can hold onto something). That could pose some issues for passengers who have reduced mobility and may require a lot more crew help than usual.
When the tray table is deployed, it becomes easy to put a smartphone in a slot to act as a holder if you desire the multi-screen experience with an iPad or other tablet in front of you.
Markets
Whilst Steila Aerospace is targeting this very much as a “sustainable business class”, by its nature – business class isn’t sustainable. It’s there to fill the cabin and drive revenue (bearing in mind, a lot of long-distance flights are sustainable due to business class fares – as well as Premium Economy).
For a Legacy Carrier to pick this up… they would have to be very brave and careful how they sell this… and I can’t see that happening, unless as business-lite product – and having up to five cabins on an aircraft could be a very tough sell.
However, there are carriers who use recliner-style seats for long-haul business-class missions. These could be an easy sale offering direct access to the aisle, whilst not appearing to sacrifice capacity.
Similarly, some leisure carriers who have a cost focus could use it as a “My First Business Class seat” as a premium seat for holiday traffic.
Challenges
The biggest challenge – both to airlines and consumers could be how stripped back it is. There are expectations for business class – both in seat and service, with passengers having an experience of pressing buttons and the seat automagically adjusting. Moving that expectation backwards to a manual method, where you are going to need some core strength to adjust the seat could put off a lot of people. Similarly, I can only think of one long-haul carrier that doesn’t have screens in its business class product (ZIP AIR Tokyo).
The rise of the Low-Cost Carrier Business seat?
At AIX last year, there were a few concepts floating of “stripped back” business class seats – but it seems Stelia is the first to the marketplace with one this year, trying to combine its comfort with something that can be seen as sustainable.
It’s certainly a step up over a Recliner seat, and some carriers might be tempted by the weight savings – which cut the fuel bill of the aircraft over time.
We’ll have to see if the schism between full-fat seats, light-type seats – or seats in the middle appears.
Images, Economy Class and Beyond.
Economy Class and Beyond was a guest of Stelia Aerospace at Aircraft Interiors Expo.
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Looks like the Finnair seat
Collins Aerospace did the Finnair seats. Those have one actuating motor in them, that be in the leg rest.
Stelia’s Opera is flying on Air France, which is a much more featured product.
Well said. It seems like a hybrid of a good premium economy and business class. The manual seat controls, comparatively thin looking padding, and the clever but small-ish video screen are all detractors from offhand observation. Perhaps an airline like Icelandair that has a lesser quality business class would consider moving to this.
Has this been approved by the regulators? The entry space between the seat and the housing for the next seat in front looks pretty narrow.
Solid idea, though, I can see it appealing to airlines like Level if they add A321XLRs sometime in the future and want a “PE-plus” product. Is there an option to add a TV, though, for routes that may not have 100% internet coverage?