Spirit Airlines just unveiled its freshly updated interior. The budget airline's new cabin features roomier seats, a larger tray table, and additional pre-recline. First announced on September 9th, low-cost carrier is a month late in the unveiling as it had first mentioned it would roll this out in November.

“We listened to our Guests and went on the hunt for the optimal Spirit seat. Our new seats and cabin redesign were developed from the ground up to enhance the experience, while maintaining our low fares at the same time. We’re the fastest growing airline in the country, and we’re delighted to usher in these innovations in Guest comfort as our fleet doubles in size over the next five years.” -Ted Christie, President and CEO of Spirit Airlines

New cabin, new seats

The refreshed interior design will include an updated carpet as well as new signage and Spirit-branded color palette of yellow and black. However, the big news is the upgrade to passenger seating, with the promise of more space and more comfort.

Designed by Acro Aircraft Seating and previously announced in September, the new seats are padded with ultra-lightweight foam and made of a composite skeleton. The airline claims that these new seats will allow for two inches of additional usable legroom when compared to industry-standard flatback seats with an identical pitch.

Here are some additional changes to Spirit's cabin and seating:

  • Back pouches and safety cards are now elevated to provide more space at the knee level.
  • Tray tables have been expanded to be "full-size".
  • Middle seats will gain an additional inch of width. These seats are one inch wider at 18 inches, compared to 17 inches for the window and aisle seats.
  • Every seat will gain nearly an inch of pre-recline with exit rows adding more.

A bigger benefit for the environment and fuel efficiency. In fact, Spirit's new galley carts will weigh 4 pounds less than existing carts. Furthermore, the new Acro seats are 2.6 pounds lighter. This means a weight savings of hundreds of pounds per flight.

The new cabin features a slightly wider middle seat. Photo: Spirit Airlines

The Big Front Seat

The new Big Front Seat. Photo: Spirit Airlines

Spirit is also updating its Big Front Seats. These seats offer a "new ergonomically-improved headrest with plush memory foam" as well as additional memory foam in the seat cushion.

According to the airline, the seats were designed in cooperation with HAECO Cabin Solutions. The airline also claims that guest feedback and survey results helped guide these design enhancements.

“This investment in our seats and onboard experience is a direct result of that commitment, and it also allows us to enhance our product value while maintaining our industry-leading cost structure. We have listened to our Guests, and we are responding with these new, more comfortable seats.” -Ted Christie, Spirit Airlines’ President and Chief Executive Officer

Spirit
Spirit expects to make even more money from non-ticket sales in 2020. Photo: Spirit Airlines

Conclusion

The airline says even more projects will be rolled out in the near future as part of its "Invest in the Guest" initiative. These include:

  • Inflight WiFi
  • Updates to its Loyalty program
  • Self-bag drop operations

The new interior will be the default for its new Airbus A320neo aircraft being delivered to Spirit over the next several years. For its existing fleet, Spirit will update the interiors of aircraft as they cycle through scheduled maintenance.

We asked Spirit about the 'refresh rate' for its existing aircraft but have yet to receive a response at the time of publishing.

If you have flown Spirit Airlines before, how are the existing seats? Do you think this will be a huge improvement to Spirit's inflight experience? Let us know in the comments.