Economy class seats suck. Here’s one way to reinvent them

First class airplane seats have gone up in luxury, and some airlines even offer ‘sky suites’ that feel like hotels in the air. Yet the rest of us are stuck with economy class seats that have gone unchanged for decades. That’s bad news if you’re embarking on a long haul flight.

Singapore startup AirGo wants to right that wrong by developing airline seats that don’t just look sleek; they could streamline an airline’s business and offer unprecedented comfort to passengers.

“Unlike computers and mobile phones, airline seating technology in general hasn’t changed much. They’re all using same old configurations,” says Alireza Yaghoubi, who founded AirGo as its CTO.

Airgo will construct the frame of its next-generation seats out of metal foam – a material that’s as light as carbon fiber composites but cheaper to produce. It will use a self-cleaning fabric and a cushion that promises to be a lot softer and more durable than what airlines are using currently.

The cushion holds its shape better, decreasing the need for future replacements. Added together, AirGo’s seat is more space efficient, giving four more inches of legroom than existing economy class seats with the same seat pitch.

Entertainment in the clouds

AirGo isn’t just hardware: users can access personalized in-flight entertainment via a touchscreen – replacing complicated remote control interfaces found in existing planes. The device connects to a flexible arm that hangs from the top, ensuring that passengers don’t leave the plane with a sore neck.

Taking into account that passengers often bring their own devices on board, AirGo will allow them to plug their gadgets into the system and view content through it.

AirGo will still have in-house content since some passengers don’t think about how to pass their time on the plane. But instead of reinventing the wheel, the startup will use off-the-shelf tablets and a customized Android operating system.

Android makes sense because it opens up AirGo to hundreds of thousands of apps. As a result, a user could book a taxi or hotel before the plane touches down using apps like Grabtaxi or HotelQuickly.

What all these amount to is greater comfort for passengers on long flights and cost savings on airplane maintenance. It promises to be lighter, smarter, and three times more durable than products now in the market.

Assuming a 50 percent weight reduction for economy class seats, airlines along the LAX to JFK route could save US$19.2 million in fuel, 194,700 tons in Carbon Dioxide emissions, and US$8 million in carbon taxes per year. That’s if all planes on that route completely adopt the technology. While AirGo costs more upfront compared to run-of-the-mill economy class seats, Yaghoubi believes the maintenance cost savings will more than make up for it.

This could be a godsend for the airline industry, which is notorious for its low margins. The IATA predicts that airlines will make less than US$6 in profits per passenger in 2014 – and that’s a record year.

“Apple, on the other hand, makes about US$400 for every iPhone 5s they sell, if only the expenses for physical components are included,” Yaghoubi says.

The Apple of airplane seats