Italy Stops British Airways Flight From Taking Off Because Plane’s Seats Were Too Comfy
The Italian government stopped a British Airways flight from Milan to London Heathrow from leaving on Monday, because it offered passengers seat cushions with too much padding.
After the country’s aviation authority performed a surprise inspection on the BA flight at Milan’s Linate airport, they discovered that seats near the overwing exists of the Airbus A320neo had the wrong seat cushions. They were too thick.
- The exit row of an aircraft usually has more legroom, in order to create a wider space for quick evacuation of the aircraft.
- Seat cushions may be less pronounced in that row as well. The aircraft was supposed to have those modified cushions, but did not.
In order to be allowed to leave, the BA flight had to find smaller seat cushions for use in that row. Linate is not a maintenance base for BA (though an airline may keep extra seat cushions on hand at outstations, BA didn’t have this one handy).
The plane was sold out. They couldn’t just remove the seat cushions entirely without bumping passengers. So here’s what they did.
- It turns out that some seats on the aircraft, that could have had the extra cushioning didn’t. Those passengers were getting hosed!
- They had everyone look at the cushions at their seats. They had to check the serial number. And that way they found the smaller cushions that could be swapped for the ones at the exits.
All in all, they managed to solve this with only an hour’s delay.
@slimventures PART 1 – Random aviation authority checks in Milan almost grounded this British airways to LHR. #aviation #airbus #britishairways #milan ♬ original sound – Slim
@slimventures PART 2 – Random aviation authority checks in Milan almost grounded this British airways to LHR. #aviation #airbus #britishairways #milan ♬ original sound – Slim
It’s hardly the first time that a government objected to making air travel more comfortable! Although in the U.S. recently it wasn’t for safety. The U.S. government sued to prevent Spirit Airlines planes from getting more comfortable. And they won. JetBlue planned to acquire Spirit, rip out the interiors, and add seats with more legroom, seat back TV, and free internet. The Department of Justice objected that fewer seats means higher prices, and loss of the Spirit Airlines business model. They chose to preserve this vital supply chain of material for late night comics, too!
And by the way, the U.S. government by default forbids placing doors on business class seats so airlines have to request a waiver of this rule to install them.
