Global Sales and Marketing Director, Marcus Williams
In the aircraft seating arena, standards of comfort and weight-saving are as stringent as they have ever been. Grace Hardy spoke with Marcus Williams, Global Sales and Marketing Director at Mirus Aircraft Seating, to find out how the company is rising to the challenge.
This article was published in the April/May 2025 edition of LARA.
Q1: Which low-fare and regional airlines are currently using your seating, and which seats are they opting for?
Our flagship Hawk economy seat is flown in various specifications by flag carriers, leisure and low-fare airlines alike, due to its flexibility in comfort, optional features and brand embodiment service.
The largest low-fare airline flying Mirus seats today is Air Asia, who first installed our Hawk seat back in 2018, and is currently installing the latest seat evolution at production on all its new A321neo aircraft.
Our Hawk seat and new Kestrel ultralightweight fixed recline economy seat were both certified and made available for selection from the Airbus A320 single-aisle Buyer Furnished Equipment catalogue last year. The Kestrel, weighing from just 6.9 kilograms per pax fully dressed with a lightweight dress cover, offers best in class levels of passenger comfort and leg room.
Q2: How is the perception of the low-fare passenger experience changing? Is comfort being prioritised, or cost efficiency?
There is certainly a growing focus to maximise the passenger experience through comfort and increased leg room, particularly as airlines seek to maximise the passenger count through increasing the cabin density and operate longer routes.
However, overall, the LCCs we talk to are still for the most part prioritising weight, or more specifically the fuel burn savings that can be achieved by shedding weight, as the key requirement to maximise operational efficiency and drive down the cost per seat.
Our Kestrel seat, for example, can save upwards of 700 kilograms per typical A321neo compared to most seats, without compromising on comfort or robustness which directly translates to profit for an airline.
This is particularly true for the Airbus A321XLR, where an ultralightweight seat means airlines can fly longer segments.
Q3: How customisable are your seats for the airline? Can tech be added like charging ports, and can the design be changed?
All of our seats offer very high levels of customisation, from adding optional specification items such as USB-C in-seat power, different literature pockets, or headrest options.
We are also increasingly holding comfort workshops with airlines through the definition process so they can tune the seat specification to their own requirements.
Q4: How are seats optimised for economy and short-haul seating? What is the priority, and what is left out?
Balancing weight, cost, comfort and robustness remains the biggest challenge for an airline. What suits one airline often doesn’t suit another.
At Mirus we always look to understand the airline’s unique requirements when specifying and recommending seat specifications.
With single-aisle aircraft flying a range of route lengths, which are often much longer than in the past, it’s important that the seat offers flexibility and can handle multiple missions.
Q5: What does the future hold for low-fare and regional seating? Should we expect big changes from airlines and manufacturers?
As LCC airlines fly further for new markets, combined with a drive for maximum cabin densification to achieve cost and revenue advantages, the demands on seats are evolving too.
The best economy seats are now breaking the seven kilogram per pax threshold, which can quickly translate to significant cost advantages.
Although ultralight, the seats also need to offer increasingly high levels of passenger comfort and living space as airlines look to install as much as 20 per cent more seating than a legacy airline.
There’s also the industry-wide drive for sustainability.
Looking forward, as a seat manufacturer, we can continue to be one of the biggest influencers on this for an airline by designing low-weight seats that reduce fuel burn and CO2 emissions, using recyclable materials and making our products robust to reduce the need for the replacement, disposal and logistics of spare parts.
In response to the sustainability drive for airlines, at AIX 2025 we will be showcasing our ultralightweight economy seat, Kestrel, and revealing a new economy seat which sets a new standard in the single-aisle economy seat sector.
