Uncomfortable cockpit seats in old A320s
 

My airline has a handful of very old A320s, the first ones ever delivered in the US, originally operated by Northwest Airlines. Those A320s have these terribly uncomfortable, mechanical cockpit seats, which are completely unlike the electric seats found in the rest of our fleet.

Rumor is, these were supposed to be temporary seats, used just for the ferry over to the customer, and upon delivery they were supposed to be replaced with the more comfortable seats with which we're all familiar. But Northwest decided not to replace them. This always struck me as implausible, and probably an urban legend.

I suspect this is just how the very early A320 cockpit seats were, and they were replaced with better seats shortly thereafter. Does anyone know the full story? Has anyone else (outside of Northwest / Delta) flown an A320 with cockpit seats like these?


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d0e07a35da.jpg

That looks extremely uncomfortable, reminds me of the awful pilot seats in our old MD80s

They look in appalling condition, what's the rest of the aircraft like? I would have thought crew comfort or lack of could be considered a safety issue?

To be fair, this one had been in storage since the beginning of COVID 19, and was going in for a heavy check. Hopefully it will come out with new seat cushions or at least reupholstered. But that doesn't make the seats any more comfortable. They're just a terrible design! I bring an inflatable lumbar support which makes them marginally tolerable.

As for the rest of the plane, these planes are also far more likely to have MELs on them, sometimes multiples. Our new A321s are much more reliable and rarely have anything on MEL.

The next worst thing is the old CRT screens. They're so dim that, when the sun is shining in, all you can see is the reflection of your white shirt in the screens. (OK, slight exaggeration, but they're pretty bad compared to the new LCD screens.) They're talking about upgrading them to LCDs, but they've been talking about that for years, and they just keep kicking the can down the road. I'd almost rather them not spend the money on the upgrade, because it will mean we're keeping those planes longer. They need to just retire.

Still trying to find out of any other airline had seats like these in their old A320s? Or are we the only lucky ones?

We had a few of those on our fleet, (now defunct UK airline), in around 2006 - ish. We used to call them 'dentists chairs'.

I seem to remember the key was to move the lumbar support forwards - pushing into your back - and adjust it up and down to fit you. Then they were tolerable. But yours do look terrible; better have a word with your union to get them changed. I am sure your airline would not want any future claims for back problems caused by bad pilot seats, if you get my drift.

OMG, they do look like dentists chairs! For me, the key is to move the lumbar back away from me as far as possible. To each their own, but there's definitely no silver bullet on these seats. The union is quite aware of these seats, yet they've been flying for 33 years. :mad:

Those remind me of the terrible seats installed in some early B767. When they got really bad, someone wrote them up for discomfort. The tech log entry to clear the issue was "Ground tested, no fault found".

However, it did not end there. My recollection is that BALPA became involved, and the seats were replaced, to sighs of relief all round.

You may wish to follow a parallel procedure?

Good luck!

Luxury…
MD 80 I found great but my first jet had seats designed and built by Teleflex engineers. So uncomfortable that I carried a posture curve cushion with a tartan cover advertised in our union mag.
One trip out of Athens said engineers visited us up front and confessed that whilst they offered to build a properly designed seat our big boss demanded the flat plywood covered with minimum padding as it would stop his crews falling asleep.

Dentist chairs would be more comfortable 😂

The later ones are bad enough - 2 hours in the sim leaves me in agony

That is how they were delivered to NWA, the manual function was designed as a backup and not a primary so we had lots of seat failures. All of the manual ones were replaced with electric seats. There may have been some of the original 50 that were not replaced.

You guys should try it down the back if you think those are bad!