Spirit Airlines revealed its new Vector Light and Vector Premium for the Big Front Seats at the APEX EXPO 2022 event in Long Beach, California, where Inflight Editor Satu Dahl got to experience them in person and spoke with Lania Rittenhouse, Vice President of Guest Experience, Brand, and Communications for Spirit Airlines.
Manufactured by HAECO Cabin Solutions, each Vector Light seat is wider, includes an extra cushion and has many new, more comfortable features.
In 2019, Spirit announced a completely new-look interior with roomier & ergonomic seats, a larger tray table, and additional pre-recline on every row, and the carrier continues to build on that milestone with key seat changes based on feedback from passengers.
Spirit says the redesigned interior will be installed on its new aircraft deliveries starting in late January 2023. In total, 33 new A320 Family aircraft are planned for delivery throughout 2023.
Lania Rittenhouse, Vice President of Guest Experience, Brand, and Communications for Spirit Airlines, said: “Our cabin refresh in 2019 was a significant enhancement in the guest experience, and these new seats are another great step forward in increasing value for our guests. We’re adding new features while at the same time continuing to provide More Go with our same ultra-low fares.”
Spacious look and feel
Each seat will gain a half-inch of width, and Rittenhouse explained that the new seat technology unlocks previously unused space with a design that fits closer to the wall of the aircraft, creating an opportunity to increase seat width. This innovation also supports the optimisation of cabin operations by adding the extra room without removing space from the aisle to ensure fast boarding and deplaning for Guests. Spirit’s middle seats will continue to be an inch wider than aisle and window seats.
Spirit seats feature innovative curved seatback designs that unlock space at the knee level and this additional space amounts to about two more inches of knee space compared to flatback seats on legacy airlines with the same pitch.
All seats will have newly added headrests and the Big Front Seats are seeing changes in design to include more cushion, nearly an inch more pre-recline, easier to reach tray tables and a wider seatback.
Better for the environment
The new seats also have an environmental benefit, as the weight of each new Vector Light seat will amount to a decrease of nearly 11 ounces per seat thanks to advances in seat frame technology. These small changes have outsized effects in a large-scale operation, Spirit says, resulting in sizeable reductions of fuel burn across the fleet.
