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Cathay Pacific and Air France have begun fitting seatbelt-mounted airbags in their economy class cabins.
The airbags have been introduced in an effort to reduce fatalities in the result of a plane accident.
Since last October, all aircraft built in the US must meet standards designed to keep passengers conscious through an impact involving deceleration at 16 times the force of gravity. The same rules will be introduced in Europe by the end of next year.
While many seats have been made to comply with the so-called 16g rule without needing airbags, which are installed in about 2 per cent of seats, manufacturer AmSafe predicts they will become standard by 2020.
"The problem with our economy seats is that they have rigid shells and a head impact is more difficult to handle," Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Officer Tony Tyler said in an interview in Berlin. "Therefore we need airbags."
About 80 percent of plane crashes are survivable, and a study of 25 impact-related accidents by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority for the US Federal Aviation Administration found that stronger seats and better restraints could have averted 62 fatalities.
Source = e-Travel Blackboard:
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Cathay Pacific, Air France-KLM introduce airbags in economy
