US low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines has picked Italian seat manufacturer Geven as supplier of its new first-class seat as part of its wider initiative to attract premium travellers.
Frontier in December outlined a plan to introduce a first-class seating option, deploying a two by two configuration in the first two rows of its Airbus A320-family narrowbodies.
“The goal was to design a seat that grants exceptional comfort, luxury and space and making it available at Frontier’s trademark low prices,” said Frontier Airlines vice-president inflight experience, Gilles Bussutil at, an AIX press conference on 8 April.
“We’re thrilled to have a partner which is well renowned for high quality as well as great engineering for aircraft seating. The lightwieght option of the seat was a big driving factor. This definitely was a big driver of the decision, but most importantly was the elevated customer experience.”
He adds: ”The teams are working closely to finalise the perfect design and we look forward to beginning the installation of these seats very soon.”
Frontier aims to have the first aircraft flying with the seat later this year.
“We currently have over 160 aircraft. So it’s a full retrofit of the fleet. It will be a pretty aggressive roll-out of the first product over the next few months,” Bussutil says. “We [also] have 180 aircraft on order over the next few years, so you’ll be able to see the new deliveries being filled directly with the new seat.”
He adds: ”We have a wide variety of customers who are looking at that value, and now the products are not as differentiated as they used to be in the US, so we are looking to attract the new customer base and we are trying to attract customers from other airlines.”
For Geven it marks the first programme of major scale in the USA.
”This is just the first step that will give us the chance to increase our presence in the US,” says Geven managing director Alberto Veneruso. ”We are now planning to open a facility in the US. We are in touch with several states to find where we locate it. For sure it will be on the east coast for logistic reasons and we are already at the stage of discussions with several states.”
