Italian company Avio Interiors has revealed two proposals for the future of air travel post-COVID-19 aimed at keeping a safe distance between passengers without compromising too much space on board.
Dubbed ‘Janus’, the first proposal from Avio Interiors, references the two-faced ancient roman god with a design that has passengers facing both ways. “This proposal is distinguished by the reverse position of the center seat of the triple to ensure the maximum isolation between passengers seated next to each other,” explains the design team. While passengers seated on the side seats, aisle and fuselage, continue to be positioned in the flight direction as usual, the passenger sitting in the center is facing backwards.
This arrangement allows all three passengers to be separated with a shield made of transparent material that isolates them from each other, creating a protective barrier for everyone. Each passenger has its own space isolated from others, even from people who walk through the aisle.
The center passenger facing backward occupies the same space as others, so this seat does not need a pitch higher than usual, access and exit clearance are as usual too and therefore the seat installation pitch remains as originally provided for by the aircraft specification lay-out.
Each place of ‘Janus’ seat is surrounded on three sides by a high shield that prevents the breath propagation to occupants of adjacent seats.
The seat shield allows the passenger to sit behind to use all the equipment situated on the back of the front seat, meal table, literature pocket, and other possible equipment. The shield will continue to perform its separation function between passengers when the backrest is reclined.
To ensure access to the seat from the aisle by a disabled passenger, the shield portion on the aisle can be foldable or sliding.
Avio Interiors has also developed ‘Glassafe’, a kit-level solution that can be installed on existing seats to make close proximity safer among passengers sharing the same seat. ‘Glassafe’ is made of transparent material to make the entire cabin harmonious and aesthetically light, but perfectly fulfilling the objective of creating an isolated volume around the passenger in order to avoid or minimize contacts and interactions via air between passenger and passenger, so as to reduce the probability of contamination by viruses or other.
‘Glassafe’ has been designed to also ensure that a disabled passenger can use the seat on the aisle side by means of the rotation of the side panel. After accessing or egressing the seat, the rotating panel repositions itself in order to guarantee the protection of the disabled passenger at the same level of safety as the other passengers.