Frontier Announces Deal with Italian Seat Maker Geven

US ULCC Frontier Airlines and Italian seat manufacturer Geven announced a contract for 350 ship-sets of a new model first-class seat at the Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Hamburg.

The seat will be based on the Naples-based manufacturer’s Comoda model, but will be customized for Frontier, which intends to install two rows of the new seating in a 2x2 configuration in its entire fleet of more than 160 Airbus A320-family aircraft. Frontier also has more than 180 A320-family aircraft on order.

The new first-class seats will give Frontier a four-class cabin, with the new seats joining the airline’s existing Up Front Plus premium and standard classes, offering passengers the chance to upgrade to a better seat as part of the airline’s New Frontier customer initiative.

Most of the details of the customization, together with the timeline for retrofitting existing aircraft and line-fitting the new seats, have still to be finalized. However, the project will have “a pretty aggressive roll-out,” Frontier VP inflight experience Gilles Bussutil said.

“Our customers have been telling us that they want more premium options” but at affordable prices, Bussutil noted.

Geven managing director Alberto Veneruso told ATW on the sidelines of AIX that the contract is “an extremely important step into the American market” for the company, whose interests in the Western Hemisphere have largely been in South America, with airlines such as Arajet, Viva Aerobus, and Aerolineas Argentinas. Geven is hoping that the major order will open the door to more business, potentially from Frontier, but also from other North American carriers.

Geven is also planning to set up an assembly plant in the US, and is presently in talks with several states on the East Coast to find a suitable site.

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