While airlines have been talking of standing room seating and pay-per-use toilets, the future of air travel can certainly never be on ‘Backless Seat’. Of course, you can expect that the next step in budget airline innovation would come for the back of your seat. Here’s a latest controversy over EasyJet’s backless seat – a seat in need of repair.
#easyjet beats @Ryanair to have backless seats. @IATA @EASA this is flight 2021 Luton to Geneva. How can this be allowed. @GeneveAeroport @easyJet_press @easyJet pic.twitter.com/EthMoWRR8P
— Matthew Harris (@mattiasharris) August 6, 2019
Passenger seated on a backless seat
If you’re wondering budget airlines have seats that are not going to recline or without a window shade, then that’s not true. An Easyjet flyer got confused on spotting a backless seat on a flight to Geneva. Matthew Harris was flying from Luton, England to Geneva, Switzerland when his partner took a picture of a woman sitting on what looks like a normal airline seat, except it didn’t have a back. And the tweet went viral. It was retweeted over 11,000 times and gathered nearly 20,000 likes.
Was the seat to be repaired an assigned seat?
The backless seat was not at all an assigned seat. According to the airline, passengers were not permitted to travel in these seats as they were expected to be repaired. However, flights were allowed to depart as long backless seats remained unoccupied. In fact, the flight also departed with five spare seats onboard. The budget airline, easyJet continues to operate its fleet of aircraft in strict compliance with safety guidelines.
Easyjet slammed for asking passenger to remove the Titter photo
The tweet sparked fury with some calling the situation ‘absurd’ and others calling it ‘illegal’. Moreover the budget airline, Easyjet was subsequently criticized for risking passenger’s safety and trying to have the photo taken down at the same time. While Matthew Harris, who uploaded the photo to Twitter had also questioned whether the damaged seat was allowed on a flight or not, Easyjet responded to his tweet asking him to remove the image.
