SE AT ING INNOVAT ION
Lseat’s inventor
sees it as an
easy way for
airlines to
increase profits
AID SLEEP,
MAKE MONEY
aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
JUNE 2020 065
Be agile
in a crisis
HANK SCOTT, FOUNDER AND
CEO OF MOLON LABE SEATING,
DISCUSSES WHY SUCCESS
CAN BE FOUND IN A CRISIS
Molon Labe Seating is among
the smaller manufacturers in the
aircraft seating sector, but the
company’s founder and CEO,
Hank Scott, is feeling confident –
bullish even.
“An event such as Covid-19 would
normally be a nail in the coffin for
a small seating company like Molon
Labe. That said, I also believe
that we have been very lucky as a
company as we have always prided
ourselves on running with a nimble
and remote company structure. Just
before this horrible pandemic we
were planning to expand the team
and move into a new showroom
near our manufacturing partners.
The outbreak happened at a time
that may actually have been
beneficial for us, as we did not have
to worry about paying for hundreds
of employees and a huge facility.
“That is probably the only good
thing about this crisis, for us
anyway, and we are truly lucky.
The crisis has also cemented our
belief that staying small and nimble
whilst leveraging the expertise and
capacity of our partners was the
right business structure to have.
“When we first started Molon
Labe we were really just trying to
fix some obvious problems that the
airlines seemed to have: easy to fix
items like needing wider aisles and
wider seats. We knew that trying
to break into the interiors industry
would be a big nut to crack, and
it is an industry that is immensely
wary of change, no matter how
much it likes to throw the word
‘innovation’ around.
“Realising that, we set up Molon
Labe to be more of an ‘app’ or
software company structure, one
that is nimble and able to pivot
easily to meet market needs. For
the first few years
we were a remote company, which
worked fine. We had a really good
understanding of what sort of time
and money would be required to
certify a seat, and at no point did we
expect to do it alone. In fact our two
most successful actions over the
last few years have been to engage
with testing and manufacturing
partners to help us along, and
to build industry confidence in
our company. It’s a lot easier to
team-up with confidence-building
partners than to build industry
confidence from scratch.
“Of course we understand why
aerospace is risk averse. We know
all too well how a company can
collapse because it rushed out
a bad design full of latent
conditions,” he adds.
“That’s where expert partners
NIAR and Primus came in, to
conduct work such as analysing
designs and crash testing them
digitally to help ensure the physical
tests would not fail.
“We wonder if the post-Covid
world will see more small nimble
companies with big partners like us,
or a return to the large operators
with huge in-house capacity. I’m
sure both models will survive, grow
and thrive, albeit with a plan for the
next crisis.
“Here at Molon Labe I think this
crisis has reminded us that our
choice of business structure was
the right one. For the next few
months we are taking this quiet
time to progress our PRM seat, a
design that may have stayed on
the back burner for years as its
business case is nowhere near
as attractive as the need for it.
So maybe something good will
come out of this downtime for the
industry and we can get folks flying
in their wheelchairs sooner.”
The Lseat retrofit kit offers a real enhancement to longhaul
economy, as it can be swiftly converted from being
a regular economy seat into one designed to improve
sleep. At the press of a button, the seat pan lowers
forwards and a footrest extends, creating the economy
version of an angled lie-flat bed, with no requirement for
power or crew assistance. The seat takes ‘economy plus’
to a higher level, without decreasing cabin density.
Its inventor, Yves Hendrickx, says that airlines could
install two rows or more of Lseat at the front of the
economy cabin, according to demand. He adds that a
ticket mark up of €50 for each Lseat seat on an aircraft
flying a long-haul route every day for 330 days per year
would bring a revenue increase of €33,000 a year per
seat, with the hardware investment paying for itself
within three months on average.
Lseat has set up a partnership with industry
manufacturer, Sonaca, and has secured financing with
assistance of the Brussels region and private equity
investors.
The retrofit kit can be fitted to existing seats, but
requires design and engineering adaptation work to
comply with regulations AC25-562 and crash testing
compliance. Lseat’s collaboration with Sonaca‘s
engineering team covers this requirement.
Hendrickx sees particular potential in the long-haul
single-aisle market, as he predicts a rise in demand for
point-to-point travel and a desire for strong ancillary
revenue opportunities. “As soon as air traffic picks up,
this kind of investment will be worth it, as airlines all
need to make easy profits to help them recover from
their Covid-19 losses. Two major airlines we spoke to
since we launched our programme less than two months
ago are already preparing orders,” he explains. “Those
airlines we have spoken to since are very excited about
our solution. Lseat is the right product at the right
moment, and the industry has to think ahead.”
/aircraftinteriorsinternational.com