Avianca A320 fleet begins reconfiguration process
Avianca has unveiled its three new seats: Premium, Plus and Economy, all designed by Recaro Aircraft Seating and which will be installed on the airline’s reconfigured fleet in the coming days.
The seats will be available on Avianca’s short and medium-haul flights.
According to the airline, more than 100 Avianca experts have been working for over one year in the redesign project, with the participation of great strategic partners. Among these partners are Recaro, who is manufacturing all of the new seats, one of them exclusively for Avianca, and Airbus, with whom the airline is taking better advantage of the rear of the aircraft thanks to SpaceFlex and who have accompanied the reconfiguration process directly.
The seat design defined by Recaro reduces the weight per passenger by over 30% on each aircraft in addition to decreasing CO2 emissions per transported passenger by an average of 13%, becoming friendlier to the environment.
Premium has been developed exclusively by Recaro for Avianca and will be available on the first three rows of the aircraft. The reclining seat will be the widest available for passengers and will feature a central console with individual compartments, a power plug, USB port. It will be available from the first half of the next year.
Available between rows 4 and 14, the Plus seat’s design is light and comfortable, featuring an independent headrest with six positions, an independent stand for personal electronic devices, USB ports.
Economy is located between rows 15 and 32. This pre-reclined seat has a stand for personal electronic devices integrated into the table and USB ports.
The new interior design of the aircraft also includes Airbus’ SpaceFlex, a module that optimises the rear of the aircraft, combining the galleys and lavatories, allowing Avianca to increase its seat capacity.
“The installation of more than 14,000 seats and the new lavatory space in all of our A320 aircraft will be completed by the end of 2022. Until that date and pending the full transition of the fleet, our clients will find aircraft that will look different inside and will not have the final configuration; they will soon fly in aircraft with a renewed interior on which they will continue to travel comfortably, safely and pleasantly,” said Albert Perez, Vice President of Engineering and Maintenance for Avianca.
The airline estimates that the first fully redesigned aircraft will be ready by the second quarter of 2022 and the full and final configuration of the A320 fleet will be completed by the end of 2022. It also confirmed that the 787 Dreamliner aircraft, currently used for long-haul flights in America and Europe, will preserve the traditional business class cabin and the rest of the aircraft will be redesigned adding state-of-the-art seats and, considering this is a time of transition, clients will find aircraft with different-looking interiors.
Alexander Preston www.inflight-online