New economy class seat with deployable padded wings for passengers to lean on unveiled

Unless you get a whole row to yourself, flying economy class is pretty arduous.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel – in the form of an economy seat called ‘Interspace’ that has two padded support wings.

Unveiled today, the seat, created by newly launched London-based Universal Movement, allows passengers to rotate and lean on a cushioned surface, thereby ‘providing greater lateral support’.

The wings can be deployed separately to create private bays for families or small groups of passengers and to cater for different sleeping patterns and body shapes.

And the wings can be easily folded back into the chair’s upholstery and replaced in service.

This, the designers say, provides better access for passengers to move to and from their seat.

Universal Movement, a spin-off firm by New Territory, said: ‘The product has been developed with the knowledge that aircraft cabins have traditionally failed to look beyond seat pitch (the space between a point on one seat and the same point on the seat in front of it) as the primary determinant of comfort.’

The team behind the seat, presently a concept with no firmed-up customers, added that ‘what people crave is the ability to rotate and redistribute weight within their seat, which is why you often see people leaning on the window of the aircraft using makeshift pillows’.

Luke Miles, Founder and Chief Creative Officer at New Territory, commented: ‘Universal Movement and Interspace have been borne from the fact that not enough time, thought and resources have been invested into the back of the aircraft cabin.

‘We believe that comfort, good posture and wellbeing is a human right irrespective of financial status or social class. If you consider the psychology of the cabin, its linear, grid-like form is restrictive and as a result, seats have been designed for what is essentially an unnatural posture and seating position. The time has come to seek designs, products and services which tackle this subject head-on, creating affordable solutions for those businesses who share the same values and desires.

‘For this reason, we wanted to break the mould with this first product, which is the first of many to come from Universal Movement.’