Plane seats without back rests on budget airline spark outrage

A photo of a backless passenger seat on board a budget airline has sparked outrage.

Matthew Harris tweeted the photo of a woman seated on an easyJet flight from Luton, London to Geneva on Monday.

The woman is seated by herself with passengers behind her.

“How can this be allowed?” he tweeted.

He later added it make him question “how safe the plane was”.

“This was her seat,” he tweeted.

“The lady was moved to a spare seat once the flight was fully boarded. Not sure what would have happened if the flight was full.”

EasyJet asked Mr Harris to remove the photo pending an investigation but then explained the backless seat in a statement.

“No passengers were permitted to sit in these seats as they were inoperative awaiting repair,” a spokesman for the airline tweeted.

“Safety is our highest priority and easyJet operates its fleet of aircraft in strict compliance with all safety guidelines.”

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Another passenger responded with a picture of backless seats from a separate easyJet flight he caught on Friday.

“These were supposed our seats from Luton going to Berlin on Friday...the crew ended up paying people to get off the plane because it was fully booked,” he tweeted.

Seats with no backs are illegal, expert says

Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas said it would be “absolutely illegal” for a passenger to sit in a backless seat for the duration of a flight.

“I don’t know the fine detail but my understanding is the seat was broken,” he told Yahoo News.

“The flight was returning with the seat broken. If no one is sitting in the seat it’s not an issue.”

The picture divided opinion on Twitter with some criticising the airline and others defending it.

One man called it “a disgrace”.

“Already a nervous flyer, this doesn’t help,” another tweeted.

A man claiming to be an aircraft engineer tweeted the plane should never have been allowed to take off.

“EasyJet, you should be ashamed as a company,” he tweeted.

However, others leapt to the airline’s defence pointing out no one sat in the seat during the flight.

“Even if it’s something as small as a tray table that won’t stay in place they move you,” one woman tweeted.

Others took the chance to joke about the situation.

“This has clearly been caused by Brexit,” one man tweeted.

“EasyJet clearly having a hard time of it and having to sell off bits of plane piece by piece.”

Another jokingly suggested the airline shouldn’t be blamed.

“The passenger clearly refused to pay the upgrade fee to have a back attached to a chair,” he tweeted.

“Backs cost money.”

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