Upstart aircraft seating company Mirus secured its second customer, installing its Hawk seat on to aircraft in the TUI Group fleet. The new seats are part of a retrofit project for TUI’s 767s, covering aircraft in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium subsidiaries of the TUI group.
Working together with Mirus we are ensuring that our Boeing 767s will fly with a state-of-the-art interior and bring our guests comfortably to sunshine destinations across Asia or the Americas. – Geert Somers, Director of Engineering and Maintenance, TUI Aviation
News that the 767s are part of a “significant multi-million pound fleet upgrade” comes as something of a surprise. In mid-2018 the Group reported that it expects to consolidate to only two aircraft families, the 737 MAX and 787 Dreamliner, by the early 2020s. It is unclear if this retrofit program delays the anticipated retirement of the six aircraft in TUI’s 767-300 fleet.
The Hawk seat is a platform on which the airline builds a customized solution. Common manufacturing processes and a minimal number of parts help Mirus and its airline partners keep costs down while still delivering a light and flexible seat. That flexibility is part of what Sales Manager David Spalding sees as attractive to TUI and helping to secure the deal, “We are delighted Mirus Aircraft Seating has been given the opportunity to refine a seat guided by the vast experience of TUI’s team and in keeping with our mission of going further.”
For the TUI implementation Mirus will include USB power at the seat, integrated with the passenger service unit controls. Entertainment will be a BYOD option, with the seats including a mounting point for personal tablets and phones.
The TUI Group controls five airlines, with Germany and Nordic (Sweden) as the other operations. Those two subsidiaries do not operate the 767 type so are not included in the retrofit project.
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Does this mean less space for legs also? Better service of the seats also means better confort.
As a general rule the thinner/slimmer seats come with a decreased pitch but similar total personal space because the seats themselves consume less space. I’ve not yet seen a LOPA for the new arrangements or details on the number of seats on board so too early to give further details.
TUI’s 767s are some of the more cramped in the sky as it is – they fly a 2-4-2 layout rather than the normal 2-3-2 – so adding more rows might not even be viable from a certification/evacuation perspective.