The airline industry is not just competitive in the skies. It’s also very competitive in the cabin. Airlines have a lot of choice when it comes to choosing which seats to install in their aircraft. Seat manufacturers such as Safran, Geven, Collins Aerospace and many others. One of the largest airliner seat manufacturers is Recaro Aircraft Seating (referred to as Recaro). Recaros’ seats can be found in many planes around the world. Recaro Aircraft seating is a division of the parent company Recaro Group. Recaro Group makes seats for a variety of purposes: automotive, gaming, aircraft, and more.
Recaro Aircraft seating was present at an industry trade show Aircraft Interior Expo (AIX) in Hamburg, Germany showcasing their latest premium economy product PL3810.
Nerd Ka Travel spoke with the CEO of Recaro Aircraft Seating Dr. Mark Hiller to learn more about the airline seat market and what differentiates the seat maker from the competition. Recaro makes seats for economy, premium economy, and business class cabins.
Recaro airline customer portfolio is diverse, ranging from low cost airlines to full service airlines. Recaro seats can be found in the cabins of full service airlines such as most of Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737 aircraft fleet, Singapore Airlines, & British Airways Boeing 787 aircraft. Low cost carrier Frontier also uses Recaro seats. In addition, Recaros’ seats can be found inside of Delta Airlines’ A321Neo first class.
Low cost and full service airlines have different expectations.
Low cost airlines, for instance, desire easy to maintain seats, and wider aisles (to allow for quick boarding and unloading of the aircraft). The preference of full service airlines are more towards a premium well-designed product with lower maintenance requirements.
While each seat is customized based on airline specifications, as a starting point Recaro designs a base product. The base product is designed with a few principles in mind:
1. Sustainability
2. Comfort
3. Reliability
These principles are at the heart of Recaro seats Recaro must balance these principles, customer specifications, and regulatory compliance. Making and installing seats have variable timelines. Dr. Hiller and Recaro Aircraft confirmed that a narrowbody aircraft takes anywhere from 2 months (pre configured with nothing customized) to 12 months to be fitted. While a widebody passenger aircraft can take as much as two years to be fitted with seats.
The airline typically specifies the inflight entertainment provider if any is required. However, Recaro has a long term relationship with Panasonic which allows them to easily integrate inflight entertainment equipment into the aircraft seat.
Recaro Aircraft seating stands out from the competition by following its guiding principles of sustainability, comfort, and reliability. The seats made by the manufacturer are found in many airline’s aircraft such as Frontier Airlines, Alaska Airlines to well recognized brands British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Singapore Airlines & many more. In future flights be sure to see which seat manufacturer builds the seat you’re traveling on!
