VIDEO: Major airline expands product portfolio with innovative transfer seat
easyJet has partnered with entrepreneur Josh Wintersgill to offer a new, in-situ transfer seat to passengers with reduced mobility, enabling them to use aeroplane seats safely, comfortably, and with dignity.
The easyTravelseat will join easyJet’s, and Sir Stelios’, easy family of brands and is the first product of its kind to be used by a major airline.
25-year-old Josh developed the innovative easyTravelseat three months after winning the Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs from easyJet Founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
The Stelios Award, presented in partnership with Leonard Cheshire, recognises innovative business ideas, with winners picking up £10,000 each and the overall winner receiving £30,000 in start-up funds from Sir Stelios.
Sir Stelios said: “As is often the case — the simplest ideas can be the best. Josh has had an idea, which is the near-perfect solution to the indignity, discomfort and embarrassment experienced by disabled people when trying to access aircraft seats.
“I’m very confident that easyTravelseat will soon become as synonymous for ease and comfort as Stannah has for stairlifts.”
In the four months since winning Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs, Josh has started evolving his start-up into a fully-fledged business in partnership with Sir Stelios and his easy family of brands by securing a brand license deal and private investment.
Josh, who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, says he faces many physical challenges himself, but is determined to help disabled people overcome the difficulties associated with air travel.
“I want to provide a product that I know will help change people’s lives immediately, giving those people the ability to go and adventure the world,” he said.
The easyTravelseat, made by Josh Wintersgill’s company AbleMove in partnership with easy family of brands, is now available for order through the easyTravelseat website.
You can see the easyTravelseat in action down below: