A Quick Look at Spirit Airlines’ New Seats
FlyerTalk December 27, 2019
Spirit Airlines is refreshing its cabins. The redesign of the new seat promises “roomier seats, a larger tray table, and additional pre-recline in every row.” And it’s all part of Spirit’s new initiative to “Invest in the Guest.”
What’s Coming
Spirit’s refresh is starting from the ground up with updated carpet, new signage, and a “Spirit-branded color palette.” The seats, manufactured by Acro Aircraft Seating are “ergonomically-designed,” padded with “ultra-light weight” foam.
And, while Spirit’s press release doesn’t get into what those enhancements are, it does promises that those enhancements will allow for “a wider range of healthy postures and movements.” Plus there are two more inches of “usable legroom” compared to “industry-standard flatback seats.”
Some of that space comes from the erstwhile seat back pouches. They’ve done away with them in the refresh to make more room for knees (and reduce weight). And, they’re adding an inch of width to the middle seat which is a nice direction for any budget airline to expand.
The Big Front Seat (one of our favorite budget first class adjacent seat) is also getting a few, minor upgrades with an “ergonomically improved” headrest and memory foam. It’s not a big update, but it will be interesting to see if it makes a difference.
Invest in the Guest
Invest in the Guest is Spirit’s new initiative that incorporated “guest feedback and survey results” to help guide the design enhancements with manufacturer HAECO Cabin Solutions.
Other Invest in the Guest initiatives coming down the Spirit pipeline include inflight Wi-Fi, a revamped Loyalty program, and self-bag drop operations to reduce check-in lines.
The First Round of Upgrades
The first seats were installed at Spirit’s Detroit hangar on a brand-new Airbus A320neo delivered just a few weeks ago. The update will be installed on roughly 150 new Airbus A320s being delivered to Spirit “over the next several years.” Planes cycling through scheduled maintenance will also get the refresh.
Spirit continues to outpace other US ULCC's with the selection of the Series 6 ACRO seat, compared to the Series 3 ACRO seats seen on Frontier.
The new padding looks awfully thin. I'd be surprised if one can be comfortable in such seats for several hours.
Seat Pitch? Cozy :)
Looking at the photos, did anybody else notice the length of the individual seat has been reduced? Reducing the seat length would provide the 2 extra inches of “useable legroom.”
It admittedly doesn't look too bad, especially BFS. I'd be willing to try them out on a shorter East Coast flight where service in F on AA/DL/UA would consist of a snack basket.