Mirus Aircraft Seating has announced that the launch customer for its Hawk short-range economy seat is the low-cost Asian carrier, AirAsia. At Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, an agreement was signed by the CEOs of the two companies, Phil Hall (Mirus) and Tony Fernandes (AirAsia).
The deal will see AirAsia linefit and retrofit all its existing and new Airbus A320 aircraft with the lightweight Hawk seats, and Mirus will also provide the Hawk for its Airbus A320neo fleet, upon regulatory approval. In total this is some 312 aircraft.
Fernandes said AirAsia has had lots of issues with seats in the past 15 years and that they were really happy with the Hawk due to it being lightweight, thin but comfortable, and easy to maintain due to having few moving parts. Mirus is confident that an industry issue it can address is the difficulty in getting spare parts to customers on time, therefore reducing the risk of grounded aircraft.