UP F RONT
1. JHAS PROPOSES A NARROW-
BODY LOPA WHICH MAINTAINS
1M OF SOCIAL DISTANCING AT
A 65% LOAD FACTOR
aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
010 JUNE 2020
COMFORT ZONING
Airlines, cabin designers and suppliers are reacting quickly to
assuage any health concerns passengers may have about the
inflight experience. Mario Schisa, CEO of JHAS, proposes a LOPA, information
campaigns, and other measures that could help boost passenger confidence
Should antiviral shields be fitted to aircraft cabins?
“Maybe”, says Mario Schisa, CEO of Italian seating
company, JHAS, but adds that the perceived feeling
of safety would be tempered if passengers feel more
claustrophobic when seated and indeed if any
emergency procedures are compromised.
“The key point, in our view, is to give people a sense
that their safety is the top priority of aviation,” he says.
“It is known that psychological factors have a great
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“This is our simple
contribution as part
of the wonderful
aeronautical
world, which will
soon return”
Mario Schisa,
CEO of JHAS
impact on passengers, and we believe that knowledge
helps to overcome fears, so the first action to be taken
is to inform passengers about the existing health
precautions that can counter the spread of Covid-19.”
He proposes giving passengers some simplified
information about cabin hygiene, citing HEPA filters
that remove up to 99.97% of viruses, cabin air that is
completely recycled every three minutes on average,
and cabin airflow systems designed to avoid horizontal
flows, thus limiting the spread of airborne droplets
between passengers. Other factors he thinks
passengers should be informed of include the
disinfection of cabin touchpoints before each flight,
any social distancing measures, crew procedures if a
passenger is identified with symptoms, and the use of
masks and other PPE by staff at airports and on board.
There is also an ongoing debate about leaving the
middle seats in economy empty in order to create a
small level of social distancing between passengers.
The true safety benefits are still being evaluated, but
the measures could benefit the mental – and physical –
comfort of passengers, raising confidence in travel. This
has led Schisa to devise a seating layout that he says
could be easily certified at low cost. The configuration is
an asymmetric installation with an offset of 16in (41cm),
which he says would make it possible to maintain a 1m
distance between all passengers in the cabin, with the
load factor reduced to 65%.
On top of the socially distanced LOPA, he suggests
that airlines could fit those partition panels to the
vacant middle seats (see p70 for examples) to enhance
the feeling of personal privacy and security.
“Customers have encouraged us to pursue this idea,”
says Schisa. “JHAS wants to support to relaunch of the
aviation sector as soon as possible through a passenger
information campaign that will help passengers to
overcome their fears. This is our simple contribution
as part of the wonderful aeronautical world, which will
soon return to flying more.”
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