New Butterfly Seat Brings Lie-Flat Flexibility To Single-Aisle Aircraft

Innovations in airline seating are arriving at a rapid pace. Earlier, I wrote about an interesting but speculative idea for double-decker seating called the Zephyr that could transform premium economy class on long-haul, wide-body flights. Seats are getting thinner and stronger, adding more room for customers while still allowing more seats on airplanes. In Europe especially, it has been common for airlines to use flexible seating to vary the seat quality based on demand. Three standard coach seats can quickly become two business class seats with a small table between them, for example.

This kind of flexibility has worked for most short flights, but longer distance flights create increased demand for a lie-flat seat. Here is where a new seat, called the Butterfly, steps in. This new and innovative idea brings the idea of lie-flat seating to narrow-body aircraft, like the Airbus A321LR or the Boeing 737MAX. The single, lie-flat seat on one side of the plane starts out as two standard business class seats in a 2-2 configuration. For longer flights where sleep is at a premium, these two business seats can be quickly converted to single lie-flat sleeper suite in less than a minute with a flip of the backseat.

The Challenges With Current Flexible Seating

Flexible seating current in use, mostly in Europe, means taking three standard coach class seats and converting them into two business class seats. These conversions are available on a quick-turn basis, and for the first month or so they work fine. Not after long, though, the seats and the fill-in table used when in business mode start to get roughed-up and scratched. Mechanics in general don’t like these kind of seats because when a lot of things move, a lot of things break.

The other challenge with current flexible seating is that the created business class works fine for short flights but is sub-par for longer flights. Customers have learned to expect much more from long-haul business class, even when they would accept what is basically just a slightly wider seat for short flights.

The Pandemic Creates A New Opportunity

Among the many changes caused by the pandemic, longer-haul travel is evolving in several ways. Fewer people are traveling these flights for business as video has replaced some of the travel, and personal risk profiles have made some reticent to fly. This has had the scheduling effect to reduce some thinner point-to-point flights in favor of more hub-to-hub flying. It also has made narrow-body planes with good range, like the Airbus A321LR, more valuable since they can replace wide-bodies on many routes with much lower economic risk.

The narrow-body planes, though, make it difficult to offer a true lie-flat experience on a part-time basis. These planes are also efficient to fly on short flights from a hub, so the lie-flat seat that works well across the Atlantic would be overkill flying a 2-hour flight within Europe or the U.S. These realities create an opportunity for new kind of flexible seat — one that works for short-haul but also provides a lie-flat solution on a narrow-body shell for longer flights. This is the sweet spot that the Butterfly is trying to fill.

Winning Design Awards, But Will Airlines Buy Design?

The aircraft interiors world is buzzing over the new Butterfly seat. The Butterfly team has already won several awards for design and practicality, and for addressing a real need in the airline seating category. Rather than focus on the design features directly, though, what most airlines will like is the ability to use their A321 or Boeing 737 for longer flights with a competitive onboard product. The seat has the ability to have two business class, or nice premium economy class seats, on short flights where demand is high and the price premium for business is class is limited. But on longer flights, a quick at-gate change can turn every two seats into a single mini-suite with a lie-flat option, diagonally. This makes the product much more competitive with dedicated lie-flat cabins but keeps the flexibility needed for shorter flights.

The design is meant to be a predominantly mechanical solution for reduced weight and complexity. The company claims that, with their new engineering organization in Belfast, the Butterfly could be certified in as soon as 20 months. This timing should work well for many airlines, given how long seating issues tend to take.

Economics Of The Butterfly Require A Big Sleeping Premium

The big issue for the Butterfly is the “sleeping premium.” For longer flights, it makes sense that an airline would be skittish to deploy a standard 2-2 seating with no lie-flat option on their flights. To adopt the Butterfly solution, this means getting a 2X premium since two seats go to one seat when in lie-flat mode. The airplane won’t only fly long flights, so airlines will need to consider the total economics of all flights. For a dedicated lie-flat option that may allow a bit more density, the airline would have to consider the benefit of this for long flights against the inefficiency and costs for shorter flights. Similarly, configuring only for short-haul would come with big penalty for airlines using the same plane for a trans-Atlantic trip. Think of an airline like SAS or Aer Lingus, with a European hub that needs flights to the U.S. but also fly short flights within Europe. Does the value of having two seats on short flights plus the premium that can be obtained for the long flight sleeper make the plane more valuable than any fully dedicated configuration?

My guess is that this seat will be a winner for many airlines. Those with the biggest hubs and in one of the three big alliances may still opt to use wide-bodies with dedicated cabins for hub-to-hub flying. But, even these airlines may opt for the Butterfly for smaller long routes flown from their hubs, rather than force all customers to connect. More obvious are smaller airlines that use primarily narrow-body equipment but use these to stretch their network on longer routes. For these airlines, the flexibility of the Butterfly can create a revenue solution that is better than any of the fixed-class options available. The key, like with the current short-haul flex options in place, is that after many uses, the seats don’t break or look shoddy. Airlines will need to consider the maintenance necessary to make this true, and this will be minor compared with the revenue upside. Like a lot of our lives post-pandemic, flexibility is becoming more and more of an advantage.