AIX 2018: SpiceJet lightens up with Expliseat for Q400s

By April 11, 2018 April 27th, 2020 Featured, Seating

New lightweight seats to be installed on up to 50 of Indian carrier SpiceJet’s new Bombardier Q400 fleet will help the airline save around US$100,000 annually per aircraft in terms of fuel savings.

The new Expliseat ultra-light TiSeat E2 seats weighing 5 kg each were unveiled on Bombardier’s stand at Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Hamburg, with France-based Expliseat’s CEO, Benjamin Saada, saying its design using composites and titanium equated to a 400 kg weight saving on each of the 90-seat turboprops. The seats were designed with the help of French car maker Peugeot.

Bombardier Commercial Aircraft’s Patrick Baudis, vice-president and head of marketing, said: “This seat is not light, it’s very light! That equates to a tremendous saving with a 1% lower fuel burn due to the lighter weight, which is approximately $100,000 per year, just because the seats are so light.”

He added that the Q400 was already a very comfortable turboprop, and that with the launch of the 90-seat version, “We started to see a lot of interest in the market place.”

SpiceJet is the launch customer for the high-density 90-seat version of the Q400, ordering an initial 25 in September last year, with options for another 25. The total order value is put at up to US$1.7 billion.

[Photo: (Left to right) Patrick Baudis of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, Benjamin Saada of Expliseat, and Debojo Maharshi of SpiceJet.]

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