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Rear Facing seats

hkphhoey
Explorer C

Dear Sir/Madam

 

Apologies if this is in the wrong part of the forum.

 

As part of an argumentative essay for a non aviation degree program, I would like to research rear-facing airline seats. I remember flying in a couple of Royal Air Force transport aircraft over thirty years ago as they are proven to be safer in the event of an accident.

 

Having contacted the UK version of the NTSB they suggested that SouthWest airlines had rear facing seats before. I was just wondering if anyone knew why they opted for this as it would have been quite unusual for the Boeing 737. Most UK built airliners of the 1950/60s were rear facing mostly probably because at the time the Ministry of Defence stated all trooping flights had to be rear facing seats and so it was easier just to adopt that as standard.

 

I appreciate any help you can provide.

 

Mr Darrell Brown

8 REPLIES 8

Re: Rear Facing seats

dfwskier
Aviator A
Solution

Southwest had rear facing seats on it's original 737s during the late 1970's - don't remember if they made it to 1980's. I'm pretty sure they were never installed on SW's next generation of planes - 737-300s.

 

Why did the airine do this? I dunno.

Re: Rear Facing seats

N82EZ
Adventurer B

IDK why they had "clubseats" 3 backwards and 3 forward facing up at front bulkhead and towards the back. Maybe Herb liked to socialize with clients and customers and thought it a good idea?  Continue a business meeting enroute? Could have been a seat maximization plan?

Re: Rear Facing seats

dfwskier
Aviator A

and if you want proof, here ya go:

 

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Southwest-Airlines/Boeing-737-5H4/408836

 

and I'll correct something I said in my first post, the aircraft ID accompanying the pic is of a 737-500, so it appears that rear facing seats were on more than Southwest's first iteration of the 737.

Re: Rear Facing seats

dfwskier
Aviator A

Note that the seats in the 737-500 pic bracketed an exit door. So on this type of aircraft the configuration would have allowed easier access to the exit door than an all forward facing configuration would have.

 

As far as the earlier 737 versions with this type of seating at the front of the aircraft, there would gave been  no such benefit.

Re: Rear Facing seats

bwallet
Frequent Flyer A

@dfwskier It makes sense bracketing the emergency exit because you do not need any extra space for the exit row. However, the picture confused me in that there is a bulkhead behind the rear facing seat. 

Re: Rear Facing seats

dfwskier
Aviator A

Probably a plane SW bought from another airline that used that y type of configuration and SW hadn't yet removed it.

Re: Rear Facing seats

YeahNoMaybe
Adventurer A

I can confirm that the "lounge" seats existed in the years AFTER 9/11 and was installed in then-new -700 series aircraft in the old brown/orange/red checkered cloth seats.  

 

I know I was on several in the mid-2000s.

Re: Rear Facing seats

dfwskier
Aviator A

@YeahNoMaybe wrote:

I can confirm that the "lounge" seats existed in the years AFTER 9/11 and was installed in then-new -700 series aircraft in the old brown/orange/red checkered cloth seats.  

 

I know I was on several in the mid-2000s.


You are right. The  pic was taken in Orlando in 2003, so Southwest was using the configuration at least thru 2003.