Aviointeriors’ forward-backward Janus seat concept has built-in dividing screens to help protect air passengers from the risk of infection while in the air. Samuel Ballard reports
Aviointeriors, an Italian company that has been making airline cabin interiors for more than 40 years, believes that the Janus seat configuration and “Glassafe” could be the answer that air travellers are looking for when it comes to increasing protection from viruses.
With Janus, named after the two-faced Roman god, the middle seat of a three-seat row is turned around so that the person sitting in it will be flying backwards. A shield is then erected between all three seats that creates individual spaces for each passenger. 
Those sitting in an aisle seat have a shield on either side of them and the pitch (legroom) for the reversed central passenger is exactly the same. 
Aviointeriors’ other idea, Glassafe, is a “kit-ready solution that can be installed on existing seats”. It works by adding a transparent shield to each headrest, isolating each passenger from those surrounding them.
Both Glassafe and Janus have been designed so that disabled passengers can also continue to access their seats. The material can be transparent or opaque, the company says.
In a statement, Aviointeriors says: “[The] well-being of [our] passengers is our main objective. This is the reason why we do not intend to stop and for which we want to continue our activities to secure a future by protecting and safeguarding everyone who wants or will have to travel.
“We at Aviointeriors believe we can offer the market our contribution through already designed and industrialised solutions to be supplied to our customers in a very short time, even by incorporating any customisations if required.
“With this objective in mind, we have studied new solutions that take into account social distancing among passengers sitting on the same seat in the economy class, where there is a condition of higher density, but with characteristics that remain applicable even in the lower density classes such as the premium economy or business class.
“We have worked and we will continue to work for a tomorrow with products specifically designed to make the travels of the near future post-virus ever safer and in accordance with the new requirements for passengers who will have to share the spaces available for the duration of the transport.”
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