Airline Flight: Thursday, February 04, 2010 Let us introduce you to KOITO

For most people this is not a household name. But you are about to get to know this name very well. Let's start with this. ANA just put out this seemingly innocuous press release.

Notice it starts with the word Apology. Then it talks about "Delay in Flight Commencement of the New Boeing 777-300ER Aircraft and Change of Launch Date for New Brand and Service". Really not quite sure what this is going on about? Here are the key words "We deeply regret to inform you that the new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft will not commence operation on Saturday, February 20, 2010 as scheduled, due to delay in development of Premium Economy seats." We added the underline.

ANA goes on to explain "Premium Economy seats scheduled to be installed will be tentatively replaced with Economy Class seats.
·Configuration Boeing 777-300ER aircraft
- First Class (8 seats) - Business Class (68 seats) - Premium Economy (24 seats⇒0 seats) - Economy Class (112 seats⇒139 seats) -Total: 212 seats⇒215 seats
*Reason for changes in above(1)and(2): Delay in development of Premium Economy seats (Koito Industries, Ltd.: Headquarter located in Yokohama)."

Seems there's a problem with the premium economy seat. But, wait there's more. It turns out the problem is possibly bigger than it seems. Koito's customers are worth noting: Japan Airlines Corporation, All Nippon Airways Co.,Ltd., Singapore Airlines, Ltd., Continental Airlines, Inc., Virgin Atlantic Airways, Ltd. Koito is a rather big supplier of airplane seats.

It appears that Koito's seats may have a problem. There is word the seats do not really meet the specs they are supposed to. As there is nothing official yet, words have to be carefully used. But as we can see, ANA is scrambling to replace one seat type. Another Koito customer has a plane waiting for delivery - its parked and there is no official word why the plane is not being delivered. A customer waiting for a delivery is a sign of something serious. Very serious.

The slowness of this story getting out shows that not only Koito, but also the airlines involved are either not informed yet, or are equally frantic to control the news. People are not going to be happy when they realize the seat they are sitting in for many hours may not be as safe as required. Indeed if the seat is known to not meet the safety requirements for airline use, the plane could be regarded as not meeting basic safety regulations. From what we hear, the size of the problem is estimated at thousands of seats.

If the airlines listed above have to park planes to replace seats, taking thousands of seats out the system, you can imagine the mayhem. If, for example, you have to park an A380 to replace 75 seats, all ~500 the plane has are not producing revenue. So its a big problem.

As this news creeps out, you might expect to see airlines blocking off cabins where these seats are located. The planes can keep flying until a fix is found. But a portion of the cabin will now probably depend on Koito providing compensation until the fix is complete. Lots of red faces coming soon.

In other news: