Every novel seat design isn’t just a #PaxEx pathfinder: it’s also a pioneer project for safety regulators and certification of the seat itself and those that will come after it. With a new generation of herringbones, including the Thompson Aero Seating Vantage Solo, flying into the market, Runway Girl Network sat down over a call to talk design and certification with Thompson executives Jonny McGreevy (head of design), Martin Allen (head of certification) and Andy Morris (vice president, commercial at AVIC Cabin Systems).
As a cleansheet design, one of the benefits that Thompson had when coming fresh to Solo is that it was conceived, designed and developed specifically for the single-aisle market. This means that the seatmaker could do things it wasn’t able to do if it had started with an existing product that it was trying to make work in the space of a narrowbody.