STELIA Aerospace OPERA ESSENTIAL: "Sustainable" Business Class Seat

Hawaiian has manual movements & no built-in IFE in their A330 J seat as I believe at the time they needed to cut costs to justify the footprint of a full-flat, all-aisle seat, but the 787s have a nicer electronic setup.

Also, is that guy in the video extremely tall, or does the headrest stop around the neckline? If the latter, I can't imagine this seat gets much traction.

The seat adjustments on HA’s A330s are minimal compared to other products, but they’re 100% electric.

This is interesting. I think Play could be a potential customer. But if there is an option to introduce built-in IFE screens, perhaps we might see some airlines adopt this seat.

Perhaps this might be AA's new A321neo Business Class product 😉

I think airlines with a large share of corporate clients travelling in business will be interested. Currently, the CO2 factor is for most airlines 2.7 and therefore there is quite some pressure by corporate clients to bring that down. Not installing inseat entertainment also goes well with this market segment, because the want their employees to either sleep or work, but not to watch movies.

I totally agree with you about AA as more than a highly likely chance of getting these seats. I was thinking of AA but you beat me to the punch. AA can now market itself as being an eco-friendly airline since it has already made its decision to remove a lot of its seat-back entertainment (737s and 319s).

It might be ahead of its time, but I think we're gonna see the arrival of 'accessible luxury' with airilnes especially on long routes - people willing to pay more for a lie-flat seat, but doing without all the other premium bells and wistles with standard economy food and amenities. I guess an evolved premium economy if you will that is beyond a just a roomier economy seat. This is perfect for that.

Electrical systems are prone to failure - too often we read of business class seat stuck at a certain position. A manual feature will hopefully solve this problem. So this seat has its perks compared to other conventional seats.

Airlines should stop serving meat onboard if they actually care about sustainability. Would make more of a difference than removing a few electronic controls.

"therefore there is quite some pressure by corporate clients to bring that down."

By who, from where?

Not even trying to be contradictory, just that I wonder if you're confusing corporate-released lip service to environment issues, with an actual sense of pressure.

If they care that much about such trivial nonsense, why fly at all.

After the Finnair seat wasn't rejected by passengers/market, I'm sorta surprised that airlines haven't flocked to these kind of seats.

As others have said, lighter weight and less opportunity for mechanical failure.

I guess the desire to not appear "cheap?" But even some of the TATL LoCo carriers (who need all the margin they can get) haven't yet gone for anything like this, that I know of.

or does the headrest stop around the neckline?

Seems like it, and based on the other pictures, it doesn't appear about to be adjusted/raised at all. Odd.

Not only that the seat bottom looks low in the upright position which does not look comfortable to sit in when upright. Walls, seat, and everything looks much lower/closer to the floor than a typical product. I suppose that is where they are getting some of the weight savings. Shorter frame = less material needed.

And eat lettuce?

the footprint is the biggest part of the cost of lie-flat seat, not the actual seat

India's LCC Indigo comes to mind. They talked about introducing a 'tailor-made business class' starting with the A321neo later this year.

Look at the armrest (non-aisle side): fixed in place, and jutting right into the passenger's shoulder when he was hoping to sleep - effectively narrowing the sleeping space by 3" or more. A disastrous design decision, and a complete fail (it's not that hard to find a way to make that armrest fold or shift out of the way).

Designed by some idiot who has never tried to sleep in a business class seat. Stupid. It's all about comfort, and I dare say all about SLEEPING comfort. This seat looks like an epic failure.

Honestly, I doubt anyone cares much if their seat is electrically or manually controlled, as long as that can be accomplished without disturbing their sleeping neighbors (remember the AA 777's with seats mounted in groups, so every time anyone moved in their seats even a little, it shakes all the seats in that group?). I wonder how "smooth" this seat's manual sliding will be and how much it will jostle other seats nearby and make clunking noise like a car seat.

The downgrade in the quality of this business class seat is not going to quiet the baying complaints about so-called "sustainability" of flying in business class. At all. Anyone who thinks it will reduce the criticism from zealots is out of touch with reality.

This is about cutting costs for airlines, nothing more. This is just spinning BS.

Moving the needle on "sustainability" won't come until hydrogen-fueled long distance jets are introduced, and that's decades away from happening (at best).

Commercial, long-distance air service is extremely hard to decarbonize, more so that just about anything else. Weight versus energy density is everything; you can only make planes so light (see recent turbulence issues) and it's not easy to replace the energy density of jetfuel. It's gonna be a long wait for that, and even ripping out all the seats entirely and simply strapping every passenger to the floor won't help much. This product has nothing to do with "sustainability." Inconvenient truths.

My employer for example adds a CO2 levy as part of our CO2 neutrality journey. CO2 is such an incredibly big real for us when booking air travel, especially intercontinentally. On a TATL flight east coast to Europe the levy is 1600 USD on top of the fair price. They do it for some ESG Reporting BS. So for us it would be a big deal! We’re encouraged to fly more expensive PE than cheaper C. Incredible…

I would be skeptical that this would work for all passengers. I don't weigh enough to move some of the manual seats in domestic F and even when I do some of them tend to creep back up. As the mechanisms wear, they start to rely on weight in addition to the mechanical stops. So, this seat sounds like a disaster to me. I mean, if they can make it work for anyone, that's fine. But the seat also looks like it's not comfortable and is lacking storage.

Alaska airlines has business class (actually premium economy marketed as First Class) that doesn't have IFE!
This would, unfortunately, be a cheap upgrade though I much prefer a built-in screen!

Fake meat is laden with all the worst additives you could possibly imagine in your WORST nightmare!
real meat is much healthier than the crap called vegan/vegetarian meat alternative.

I would not mind the manual use of the seat. I do not think I would like the Finnair style that allows you to sit straight or lay down, but nothing in between.

Mechanical seats are fine if it results in less maintenance delays or out-of-service seats. There could be a market for this but they should include an IFE screen.

Indeed, so there will be a hefty premium, but still cutting out the very expensive flourishes as well as fast track and lounges does save a lot of costs.