It’s hard to believe today, but on the first airliners, seats
were basically armchairs placed in the cabin with no restraints
at all. But it didn’t take long for airlines to ealise that
first the chairs themselves needed to be fixed in place and then
that if the chairs weren’t going to move around the cabin any
more, the people in them might unless they held on tight, making
seatbelts a rather good idea! airBaltic’s seatbelts are
manufactured by US company AmSafe which is now the world’s
largest supplier of pilot, crew and passenger restraints
equipment to the aviation industry. Commercial aviation
seatbelts trace their real birth to 1955 when AmSafe’s
predecessor, Cummings & Sanders, was granted the first patent
for metal to-metal safety buckles. The design was an ingenious
classic and remains largely the same to this day thanks to its
ease of operation, resistance to jamming and reliability.
Imagine how many times your seat buckle is opened and closed
each year and then consider that if the seatbelt isn’t w