US airline may fit airbags in all aircraft seats
By Kieran Daly
An unidentified US airline is considering fitting its entire fleet with seatbelt-mounted airbags as the countdown begins to implementation of a long-awaited rule requiring new-build aircraft to meet tougher passenger safety standards.
From October newly delivered aircraft in the USA must be equipped with seats capable of withstanding a 16g dynamic longitudinal acceleration in a crash and be configured to limit the risk of severe head injury.
The European Aviation Safety Agency says it plans to issue an Advanced Notice of Proposed Amendment with similar language in the second half of this year, leading to a final rule in late 2010 or early 2011.
In practice virtually all new seats have met the 16g requirement for several years, but the head injury criteria rule has proved more challenging.
In some locations - primarily facing fixed bulkheads or behind non-articulating seats as found in exit rows - seats cannot meet the target of providing head injury criteria of less than 1,000 measured on a standardised logarithmic scale.
© Amsafe Aviation |
Phoenix-based Amsafe Aviation has already supplied its seatbelt airbags to more than 30 airlines worldwide and devised a solution for the herring-bone business-class layouts used by Virgin Atlantic and others.
Chief executive Bill Hagan says about 6% of seats are affected in typical airline layouts and will have to be removed or modified with airbags or another solution.
Amsafe's product costs about $1,200 per seat and the company claims a seven- to 10-year service life, giving a payback period of a few days compared with the revenue loss of removing seats.
Hagan says: "We are working with about 20 airlines that are impacted by the rule and none have airbags on their aircraft today. They are just using it on the minimum number of seats to comply. That is going to be the norm, but we are in serious negotiations with an airline that is thinking of doing a fleetwide retrofit because they think it is the thing to do and they want to be first."
He notes that Cathay Pacific Airways has already fitted the system nose-to-tail in its Airbus A330 fleet, and adds: "The bigger picture is that once the flying public becomes aware of this then I think passengers will expect to have it. It costs 5-10¢ per segment. You would not buy a car if you did not have this technology in it."
Amsafe claims that the airbag provides a head injury criteria of around 500, compared with a typical 800-900 for a 16g seat.
It has had little interest from European carriers, however, raising the prospect of European airlines accepting aircraft for more than a year after US carriers without meeting the head injury criteria 1,000 limit.
EASA says: "The idea is to follow the US rule, but it will not come out simultaneously. Due to the complexity of the transposition from JARs to EU operational rules, which are currently ongoing, it probably will not happen before 2010 or 2011."
