Collins Aerospace's Helix narrowbody economy seat hits the markRunway Girl

HAMBURG — When RGN journalists first tried the Meridian single-aisle economy class seat from Collins Aerospace (formerly B/E Aerospace) several years ago, we were blown away by its comfort features including impressive legroom even in snug layouts.

Fast forward to this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, and the RTX subsidiary has unveiled Helix, its newest generation of main cabin single-aisle seating which incorporates “elements of widebody comfort and novel design approaches” to accommodate new and emergent generations of narrowbody air travel.

“Helix seating was developed with three key pillars in mind – comfort, reliability and sustainability,” said Christophe Blanc, vice president and general manager of Aircraft Seating at Collins Aerospace.

Needless to say, we were very eager to engage in some claim-testing at Collins’ stand, where Helix seat triples for the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 were available.

Let’s take a look at one of the most important comfort factors of any aircraft seat — physical living space.

Collins presented Helix™ in a variety of pitches, with RGN trying both the 30” and 28” options. Overall, the seat performed very well in both.

The updated sculpting of the backrest provided comfortable and secure support in both the upright and reclined position, and whilst the 28″-pitched configuration was on the tighter side, your extra-tall 6’4 (193cm) journalist had enough room to stretch out his legs.

The 30-pitched version felt significantly more comfortable and spacious, even more so than previous seat models, thanks to the capacious under-seat design.

Alistair Hamilton, who serves as vice president of sales and marketing at Collins, explained that engineers improved the ergonomics of the seat by slightly raising the horizontal support which in turn also opened the space underneath at the shin touchpoint. The reimagined frame design is aided by fabric-based support systems within the seat itself.

Creating more under-seat space is a particularly timely move because Collins has observed that the legroom-robbing boxes that house inflight entertainment and in-seat power electronics are in some instances getting larger again, as tech-savvy passengers’ demands grow, including for the ability to charge up multiple devices as they stay connected in-flight.

It is perhaps worth reflecting on whether Helix will feel quite so spacious in a cabin with nose-to-tail 4K IFE and USB-C ports with enough wattage to fully charge a laptop.

Collins seems confident, however, with Blanc saying in a published statement: “The contemporary design increases passenger living space and under seat stowage, while the seat back is optimized to accommodate a greater number of integrated inflight entertainment (IFE) solutions, literature pockets and full-sized meal trays.”

As one would expect from Collins, the quality of the seat is very refined, with the armrest, tray table and materials feeling premium.

The feature that will perhaps be most novel for passengers is Collins’ seatback PED holder, which can grip the device in landscape mode. RGN tested the holder at AIX and found it to be a very useful addition. The holder easily and firmly held an iPhone Max and its case.

For the first time, Collins can also offer this option without a literature pocket to reduce weight. For airlines interested in offering IFE, Collins can fit screens of up to 13” in the seatback.

Collins boasts that it has reduced weight in comparison to previous generations of economy class seats. Hamilton told RGN in Hamburg that at roughly 8.5kg baseline per-seat, the design is “competitive but not flimsy”. Our own news archive shows this claim to be accurate, as Collins quoted 9kg for the baseline Meridian product back in 2018.

On the sustainability front, Collins has not completed a lifecycle assessment of Helix, which will be dependent on airline specifications. Hamilton confided that there are some plastics used in the construction for which: “we need to work on the sustainability for that.” Collins is still looking at solutions.

Considered an evolution of Collins’ narrowbody main cabin legacy, which includes Spectrum, Pinnacle and Meridian-branded seats, Collins sees Helix as a direct replacement for Meridian “as both are designed to serve medium and long-haul narrowbody aircraft types”, said a spokesperson.

“Of course, Meridian remains a very popular seat with operators and passengers, alike. As such, we expect to see continued interest in Meridian seating from both current and new customers for the foreseeable future,” he added.

Collins said it’s currently engaged with a number of airline customers to introduce Helix to their narrowbodies. Helix is not a radical departure from existing models, but it offers more comfort even in high density configurations whilst tackling emerging trends in IFE and in-seat power.