How to work with a new generation of premium seats

As the COVID product logjam starts to clear, and the fruits of the pandemic reflection period start to ripen, we’re expecting a higher-than-average number of new seats to be released, heavily updated, or shown publicly for the first time — especially in the increasingly important business class segment, where many airlines make the majority of their profits.

There are fascinating challenges for the industry to discuss in this space, and AIX is a global forum to do just that — and, indeed, to propose ways to overcome those challenges.

As just some examples:

• • Should herringbones face inwards to the aisle or outwards away from the aisle — from a passenger experience or a         density perspective?
  • How do staggered seats resolve the privacy imbalance between seats immediately adjacent to the aisle and those           separated from it by a footwell?
  
• • How high should sidewalls be within seats and suites?
  
• • To door or not to door?
  
• • Which products offer either “honeymoon” couples seating, or seating suitable for families with young children who have outgrown the bassinet but might not suit their own seat?
  
• • And what to do about the extra space that a front-row, business-plus product can bring?
  

How to work with a new generation of premium seats

As the COVID product logjam starts to clear, and the fruits of the pandemic reflection period start to ripen, we’re expecting a higher-than-average number of new seats to be released, heavily updated, or shown publicly for the first time — especially in the increasingly important business class segment, where many airlines make the majority of their profits.

Where — and how — to position front-row business-plus

Seat makers, cabin designers, suppliers and airlines have a wealth of diverse opinions when it comes to designing the front row of their products — this really is an open question within the industry, and it’s definitely one to discuss in Hamburg, whether on the show floor or over a glass of something refreshing.

Here, we’re asking:

• What’s the balance between the complexity of an integrated monument and the extra revenue opportunity of a front-row-plus seat?
• In a particular airline’s context, is it better to position it as business-plus or first class (or indeed first-minus)?
• How can we best use all the extra space?
• Should there be any soft product upgrades as well
• Just how different should these seats look and feel to the rest of the business class cabin?

How to bring CMF even deeper into the cabin

More than ever, the look and feel of the seat — expressed through its color, materials and finish (CMF) — is what makes or breaks a cabin.

But:
• Which palette from the greige spectrum is best for the neutral base color of the cabin?
• What accent color, material or pattern visually identifies a particular airline’s cabin with the airline?
• How can smart CMF choice, and materials intersection work, help to offset or even prevent production quality issues?
• Which textures and materials deepen the field of vision, expand a sense of space, bring comfort, and lend a premium feeling to the seat and cabin?

Whither COVID, and “COVID Clean”, in 2023

As we move into the mid-2020s, all of us — as individuals, as groups, as societies, as cultures, as nation-states — are adjusting to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These adjustments, and what they mean for the industry, are both conscious and unconscious, go at different paces, remain unpredictable, and are likely to continue to evolve.

They also spur many questions:

• To what extent do passengers still want to be reassured about cleanliness?
• Where are passengers polarized, in societal and political terms, about COVID-related health and hygiene measures?
• How do we as an industry integrate lockdown-era learning about cleanliness, and product upgrades like antimicrobial coatings, into the cabin?
• When and where is the “COVID Clean” aesthetic still relevant?


Join us to continue the conversation on stand 7-C20, and raise a glass with us to toast inspirational design at AIX 2023.