Passionate travelers are already used to it: design professionals from aircraft manufacturers and airlines themselves, from time to time, announce changes in their flights to offer more comfort to passengers and convince even the most skeptical that flying doesn’t have to be a bitter pill.
Among the innovations announced last year, one trend stands out: more space to lie down and sleep and, perhaps, a definitive goodbye to the controversial middle seat.
The conclusion was presented in March in the nominated Crystal Cabin Award – the Oscar for aviation interior design – celebrating “modular solutions” for expanding travelers’ spaces.
The ceremony will take place in June and crown the best of the segment in eight categories – including “cabin concepts” and “passenger comfort” – and should have giants like American Airlines and Air New Zealand, which announced major innovations to their designs during 2022.
In common, they adopt niches or “nests”, which guarantee more privacy to the passenger, with more legroom and even the possibility of lying down completely horizontally to sleep.
American Airlines, for example, gave up part of its seats to create suites with a door for those who board, especially in business class, starting in 2024.
Air New Zealand’s model, which is also expected to take to the skies in 2024, was more ambitious, put berths on board with its “Skynest” in economy class, and offered suites with sofas for the business class.
Both expand the concept of the “nest seats” that had already been announced by Finnair in February 2022 and compete for awards, but the one from the New Zealand airline delves into a proposal that may signal the future of aviation: double cabin floors – like the famous London buses.
The idea, by the way, had already stood out in last year’s edition of the Crystal Cabin Award, in which the judges highlighted the innovative project of the young Spaniard Alejandro Núñez Vicente, who created the Chaise Longue – a concept in which the economy class of the aircraft would be filled with seats on two different levels to accommodate demands for space better.
MATRYOSHKA CABIN AND VIRTUAL WINDOWS
In 2023, one of the proposals competing for the award also comes from Spain, from the office T36 Taller De Arquitectos.
Their multicabin is like a matryoshka, the famous Russian doll stuffed with miniatures similar to its exterior.
Therefore, the “body of its plane” has three distinctive minicabins superimposed on its interior – each with two rows.
The idea is to eliminate the controversial and sometimes hated middle seat without giving up the number of seats inside the aircraft.
Another innovative aspect was the windows: part of them would be virtual, projecting a quiet exterior for the mental comfort of the passenger without access to the aircraft’s sides.
The Crystal Cabin Awards will take place on June 6 in Hamburg, Germany, and some of the chosen ones may start crossing the skies as of 2024. As for the future of travel imagined by the nominees, it remains to be seen if their most creative predictions will be confirmed.
With information from UOL