Lightweight-seat specialist Mirus is marking its tenth anniversary with its largest Hamburg presence yet.
The UK manufacturer is showing four new or in-development products at the event, including a long-range economy seat and a virtual reality unveiling of its first premium economy offering.
“This will be our biggest AIX yet,” says Adam Challenor, technical director at the Norfolk-based developer.
Falcon is an economy seat designed for twin-aisle aircraft as well as the Airbus A321XLR and was displayed as a concept at AIX in 2024. “This year, it will be a much more mature seat with a lot of parts already production tooled,” says Challenor.
It is designed with a 6in recline and articulated seat pan and capable of hosting a 13in screen. “The focus is very much on living space and comfort,” he says.
Although Mirus does not have a customer, Challenor says certification is targeted for next year ahead of deliveries beginning in 2027.
Invited visitors to Mirus’s stand will also get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Osprey, the company’s debut premium economy seat.
Although still very much in industrial design phase, “we have a product roadmap we’re working to and we’ll be contriving to mature it this year,” says Challenor.
He says Osprey is pitched at US carriers operating a “domestic first” cabin as well as Asian airlines that operate dual-class configurations.
“Many of them want a one-stop shop, so it’s imperative that we have a product we can offer them,” he says.
In addition, Mirus is showing the latest version of its original Hawk reclining economy seat, the Hawk Duo, which it hopes to certificate this year.
The “second-generation” seat – which will eventually replace the legacy Hawk – has been adapted using lightweight technology used in Mirus’s second product family, the Kestrel and will be 20% lighter than legacy Hawk.
“It will have an industry-leading, sub-8.5kg weight,” says Challenor.
Mirus revealed Kestrel at AIX in 2022 and achieved UK certification last year. Optimised for the A320 family, the 6.9kg seat is lighter than its competitors and is “super competitive” on costs, claims Challenor.
The latest developments will give Mirus four families of seats, all named after birds of prey, and represent growing momentum for a company that got off to a flying start with a 60,000-unit retrofit order from Air Asia before the pandemic.
The company, based in the village of Hingham, employs 120 and has a sales office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Its business is split half and half between retrofit and line-fit, with Airbus aircraft representing the vast bulk of its market.
In 2022 Mirus became one of a small group of seating manufacturers to open its own dynamic test facility, which it makes available to third-party customers including automotive firms and emergency services organisations. Despite the “huge investment”, the unit is “doing phenomenally well” and has helped Mirus considerable speed up new product development and testing, says Challenor.
The biggest barrier to Mirus’s prospects is the change to the UK’s certification requirements post-Brexit. Rather than getting its products validated directly by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, Mirus must first attain UK Civil Aviation Authority approval.
With the CAA “still developing expertise” in certificating aircraft seats since the 2021 split with EASA, and no reciprocal agreement between the two bodies, the situation is “hurting British industry” and “giving an advantage to our European competitors” which can go through a much faster EASA process, says Challenor.
Ten years after its foundation, Mirus has an advantage over larger manufacturers such as Collins, Recaro, and Safran because “we are more agile and can provide a more personal service”, says Challenor. “Customers often come to us disillusioned with the big players and willing to take the risk on a smaller supplier.”
However, he admits that flexibility on its own is not enough. “This is such a product-oriented industry, so we also have to be better than the heavyweights in that respect,” he says.
“I think we have reached the point where people look at our seat and say: ‘That is a Mirus.’”
