Representative image
| Photo Credit: VIJAY SONEJI
The seats on the Air India aircraft on which Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan flew on Saturday (February 22, 2025) were new and so was the aircraft. While the seat was not broken per se as alleged, the cushions on a vast majority were sunken because of the seat design, it is reliably learnt.
On Saturday (February 22, 2025), the Minister took to social media and attacked Air India for selling him a “broken seat” on a flight from Bhopal to New Delhi. He said selling such seats for full fare was unethical and a betrayal of passenger’s trust.
Nearly 60% of the seats of Air India’s Airbus A321 Neo aircraft, registered as VT-RTB, were “sunken or thinned”, according to a document that lists inoperative equipment on a plane called the Minimum Equipment List (MEL) accessed by The Hindu. Such a list allows the aircraft to be despatched in a safe and airworthy condition when certain functions are temporarily unavailable.
The glitch with the seat is recorded under the category of “non-essential function” (NEF) items like interior furnishings, galley equipment, entertainment systems, or other components that are not critical to the safe operation of the aircraft, but may cause discomfort to passengers.
The aircraft VT-RTB was delivered to Air India in April 2023, and is not among its legacy aircraft infamous for broken seats and in-operative in-flight entertainment screens. The aircraft was among the 25 A320 family of aircraft leased by the airline between 2023 and 2024. These aircraft were brought to India without seats installed in them, and the retrofitment was carried out later in the country.
An industry official explained that the specific seats installed on the aircraft in question were all new. The seats were purchased from Italian manufacturer Geven. “The seats don’t have a seat pan, as a result the seat cushion takes all the weight of the passenger occupying the seat,” one industry official explained. This results in passengers often complaining about the seats being sunken or decompressed. On Saturday’s flight, during mid-air turbulence, passengers may have experienced the seat cushion shifting resulting in discomfort and an impression that the seat was “broken”.
“It is not possible to change the aircraft seats in a short span of two years. Cushions are replaced on a regular basis once their life is over,” the industry official explained. The specific seat design is often chosen for its light weight, which helps airlines reduce cost on fuel while operating such aircraft.
Only four of the 25 A320 family aircraft leased have seats from Geven, while the remaining have Recaro seats of a different design.
The airline is already modernising its legacy fleet. Retrofitment on 27 of its narrowbody Airbus A320neo aircraft is expected to be completed by mid-2025. The first of the legacy widebodies, a Boeing 787, will also commence retrofit of new seats and entertainment systems in April and re-enter service in October 2025. A total of 27 of these planes would be retrofitted over a period of almost 12-14 months. The retrofit of the legacy Boeing 777 fleet due to commence in 2025 will now commence in early 2026 due to production constraints of the selected seat supplier.
Published – February 24, 2025 09:15 am IST
