Delta Air Lines has unveiled a new accessible plane seat designed to accommodate passengers in motorised wheelchairs.
The US airline has partnered with UK company Air4All to create the prototype, which will allow passengers to remain in their own power wheelchair on flights – which has not been possible before due to space restrictions.
Currently, power chair users are often lifted in and out of their seats and transported onto planes in narrow wheelchairs while their own is placed in cargo.
“Commercial aviation is the only mode of transport that has no regulations to allow power wheelchair users to travel safely and with dignity seated in their own chair in an aircraft cabin,” Air4All said on its website.
“Airlines have been resistant to provide a wheelchair space as this would result in a loss of seat count.”
However, the new chair prototype, unveiled at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, this week, will change that.
When the space it not in use by wheelchair users, it will operate as an ordinary seat. However, when required, it can be collapsed down and easily packed away and adapted to create a secure area where a motorised wheelchair can fit.
A video demonstrating the new chair in action was shared on Twitter by aviation journalist Seth Miller, who described it as “the star of the show”.
While the prototype sparked excitement at this week’s expo, it’s likely to be some time before the seats are in use commercially.
In a statement, Delta said the product was still in the "early development stage", and needed to undergo stringent safety and regulatory reviews, likely to take at least 18 months.
"Delta will keep a keen eye on the progress of this concept being driven by our subsidiary – as we are always looking for ways to improve the travel experience for all customers," it said.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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David Haye record
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Wins: 28
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What is an ETF?
An exchange traded fund is a type of investment fund that can be traded quickly and easily, just like stocks and shares. They come with no upfront costs aside from your brokerage's dealing charges and annual fees, which are far lower than on traditional mutual investment funds. Charges are as low as 0.03 per cent on one of the very cheapest (and most popular), Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, with the maximum around 0.75 per cent.
There is no fund manager deciding which stocks and other assets to invest in, instead they passively track their chosen index, country, region or commodity, regardless of whether it goes up or down.
The first ETF was launched as recently as 1993, but the sector boasted $5.78 billion in assets under management at the end of September as inflows hit record highs, according to the latest figures from ETFGI, a leading independent research and consultancy firm.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five largest providers BlackRock’s iShares, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisers, Deutsche Bank X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
While the best-known track major indices such as MSCI World, the S&P 500 and FTSE 100, you can also invest in specific countries or regions, large, medium or small companies, government bonds, gold, crude oil, cocoa, water, carbon, cattle, corn futures, currency shifts or even a stock market crash.
