Recaro is unveiling its new Luna regional railway seat platform at the InnoTrans Expo in Berlin, one of the first steps in revitalising the product line as the seatmaker seeks to translate its aviation successes into rail. Luna as a platform consists of both the standard 11kg single seat module and Luna+, which adds width and a recline mechanism as options.

In advance of the show, Runway Girl Network sat down for a wide-ranging discussion with Recaro Rail’s chief executive officer — and chief business development officer of parent company Recaro Holding — René Dankwerth, who reveals that the new Luna seat has its second customer for the German railways in Bavaria. The product is also installed on regional Stadler FLIRT trains in Finland.

“We are proud that we could get a contract from Deutsche Bahn — it will be regional trains for Bavaria that we will equip with the new Luna original products,” Dankwerth tells RGN.

Since its 2022 acquisition of Polish rail seating specialist Growag, Recaro has been aiming to revitalise its railway product lines, with Luna sitting alongside its existing Xeon, Swift, Visio and Vela seating products within this regional space.

“Growag [when] we took over were traditionally present in the segment, from, I would say, the most simple metro seat up to the intercity seat — they were not covering the high-speed segment. We said, from our focus: let’s do the homework, step by step. We started in the existing business fields, brought the new products in, and once we are through that, then we will also certainly attack the high-speed segment, in the next step,” says Dankwerth.

The added understanding from Recaro Aircraft Seating will be interesting to observe. Railway seat production is simpler in some ways yet more complex in others when compared with aviation seating — and analogous in other ways as well. On the analogous side, given the growing use of lightweight electric train units, seating weight is seeing renewed focus, while complexities include the differences between national certification authorities, even within areas that are harmonised within aviation like Europe. 

Further complexities include the differing requirements for metro, regional, conventional intercity and high-speed rail, which add growing certification specifications as vehicle speed increases.

Seat robustness is another, with vandalism more of a concern on rail, driven partly by a lack of crew visibility compared with aviation and partly because, Denkwerth explains plainly, it requires a cutting test that wouldn’t be needed on aircraft because knives aren’t permitted past security.

Interestingly, these robustness and vandalism requirements may mean that wireless charging sees strong adoption in rail. While electric requirements are “on a simpler level” than in the airline cabin environment, Dankwerth notes, vandalism with the often sensitive elements of a USB socket means that the less vandalism-prone wireless charging options that can be integrated into newer seats the better.

Looking strategically, Dankwerth says, “on the journey to renew our product portfolio — but also for our Western Europe expansion — we will also have at InnoTrans a new intercity product that we will be presenting, in development at the moment.” Longtime Recaro aviation seating executive Timo Lenzen — at present director of engineering at Recaro Aircraft Seating Americas — will head over to the rail seating arm as of November 2024 as part of this journey.

In terms of destination, Recaro will be looking to the high-speed rail market that perhaps has the most parallels with Recaro’s aviation seats. As with aviation, the volume sector within high-speed rail is the standard class seating equivalent to aviation economy class, but across Europe in particular there is appetite for innovation in both premium cabins and in the overnight rail market, where little penetration of airline style seating has occurred, excepting the Bergen-Oslo PlusNight pods.

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All images credited to Recaro