There’s a cute story trending on TikTok about a man who missed flying so much he ordered a pair of Delta first class airline seats to re-create the flight experience at home.
Man Buys Airline Seats For Home
Steve Simao lives in Seattle. He works for Windstar Cruises and enjoys photography. He is also loyal to Delta Air Lines. One day, as explained by his daughter on TikTok, he texted her an eBay listing…for “DELTA MD90 Jetliner, Aircraft, Airplane FIRST CLASS Leather Seats.”
They had a good laugh, but it wasn’t a joke. Simao missed traveling so much he purchased a pair of Delta first class seats for his home.
@lolnissy
His daughter Annisa told The Washington Post:
“He actually never really buys anything for himself, so in terms of purchases, this was kind of out of character. But if there’s anything he was going to buy, that does add up.”
A man after my own heart!
Like Ben’s father sending dinner pictures, Simao started sending pictures of him and Mrs. Simao to Annisa in the new chairs…sometimes multiple times per day. Like the picture above.
“My mom would send me a video of her bringing food to the [tray] table and him just sitting there enjoying it.”
@lolnissy
Delta’s Reaction
Annisa shared some pictures with Delta on Twitter and received a private message asking for a mailing address. Turns out, Delta sent a safety video with a personalized greeting by CEO Ed Bastian himself. Delta is also giving the Simao family three free roundtrip first class tickets to anywhere in the United States (JFK-HNL anyone?!).
Bastian said:
“I understand your dad really misses travel on Delta during this crazy year we’ve been through. I’m glad he’s enjoying those first-class seats in your home, and we’ve got first-class seats waiting for him when he’s ready to start traveling again.”
@lolnissy
Interested in first class seats for your own home? Check eBay. There are all sorts of interesting listing.
CONCLUSION
I’ll offer a confession. I’ve dreamed several times about acquiring a Lufthansa First Class suite from a now-decommissioned A380. One of those suites in my office would not only be nostalgic, but double as a desk and bed. One can dream…but Steve Simao is living the dream!
image: Annisa Simao
As you said above, you wish you could have Lufthansa first class seats in your office, I wish I could have one of new Emirates 777-300 first class seats on a corner of my bedroom.
Yes! I’d take one of those too! 😉
Just check out aviauction, they have had Emirates first suites for sale on there for months (maybe longer). Haven’t seen any takers at a starting bid of $13k each!
$13K! No way!
$13k seems to be if you buy all 8. Individually bought, the seat is $19,000!
As the BA 747s are taken apart various bits and pieces including seats appear for sale from the recyclers. Currently there are economy rows from G-CIVM for sale and lots of bits of flight decks, plus various seats from G-VAST of Virgin. There have been lots of other bits and pieces that arrive in waves and sell out quickly like flight deck seats and control columns. Shipping to the US might be a bit pricy but I am sure could be arranged.
Probably easier to try to scalp something from a plane parked in the Mojave desert for me.
Probably true, and a far larger selection of aircraft too. Easier for us now BA send them to Cardiff and Kemble for scrap rather than the States. There was a release of the safety cards off of the last one from Heathrow that sold quite well which is nice to have.
Delta sells its carts and seats fairly heavily through their museum surplus sales, and the prices are great, especially if you were looking at BA sale for price examples
I’ve had a pair of DL first class seats in my office for 10 years. Apparently I played this all wrong – I should have bragged about them a long time ago!
I will confess to being that kind of nerd. Sort of? For twenty years I collected vintage airline memorabilia focused on the 1940’s-1970’s. I amassed quite an array of anything you might imagine. Iran Air first class menus from the 70’s? Check. A Pan Am catering cart? Check. Braniff artwork? Check. Pan Am ticket office models? Check. (I especially loved the cutaways.)
I ended up selling it all 10 years ago as it was getting out of hand. But I did enjoy many wonderful snowy weekends perusing through vintage menus and timetables and imagining what it was like during the golden age. And my catering cart also made an excellent bar in the process.
A rare classy and humble move by Bastian. He must be feeling giddy because of Biden’s [alleged] victory.
With all of the aircraft retired lately, I am incredibly surprised that there are not more opportunities to buy aircraft seats. The ebay listings are relatively sparse relative to how many seats should be out on the open market. I’d like to know what happened to all the old CO BusinessFirst recliners when they went lie-flat, or even the recently removed seats when they converted to the Polaris seats. Did they get recycled, sold off to 3rd world carriers….reupholstered and EK is debuting them as their new state of the art J seats?
I broke down and bought a pair of AA “Eisenhower” First Class seats off of a 757; not the prettiest of seats but classic and looking to add MD80 F seats if I can find them.
I love those old MD-80 F seats!
I used to have a set of 3 DC-9 seats. I had to put cardboard to protect the wood floors. Unfortunately, I had to move out of state and gave away the seats. The fabric was a bit dirty.