5 New Airline Cabin Features Changing the Way We Travel

With the aviation industry soon headed for its biggest aircraft cabin products show of the year, we thought we’d take a moment to give you a peek at some innovations which we’d love to see make their way from the show booth to the clouds.

Here’s a countdown of our top-five favorites:

5. Rohi takes the yawn out of yarn.

Rohi NextGen Seat Fabrics/Rohi, Germany

Maybe it’s our passion for plane fashion, but we admire the many varied patterns and colors of seat fabric. It’s an art form.

Well, it can be.

The industry has sometimes suffered from an addiction to the uniform. The varied prints of Rohi’s proposed fabrics break that uniformity add some variety to the cabin and make it easier to know which of the sea of economy seats is yours. Visually stimulating interiors help keep our mood positive in flight, which can make the economy long-haul cabin experience bearable, design psychologists say.

4) Nothing says welcome aboard like a well designed entry galley.

Boeing 777 Premium Entry Arch/TEAGUE Design

The spacious design of this Boeing 777 Premium Entry Arch by TEAGUE, Seattle, leaves us breathless. The only trouble is that we might want to hang out there for the duration of the flight.

3) The Elisava bracket trolley from the Barcelona school of design is brilliant.

Elisava Trolley/Barcelona School of Design and Engineering

Elisava Trolley/Barcelona School of Design and Engineering

We can finally say adios, goodbye and good riddance to the tired trolley. Not only does this ingenious bracket trolley—with rotational drawers and injury-preventing rounded edges—look great and work smart, it also solves the horrible dilemma of waiting for the trolley to go past in order to get to the lavatory. These beauties can’t make it onto aircraft everywhere soon enough for us.

2) The high-tech accessible design of the Haptikos system by B/E Aerospace elegantly addresses a critical need in aviation.

B/E Aerospace Haptikos capacitive touch-screen technology / B/E Aerospace

Universal design thinking ensures that all passengers enjoy the same rich air travel experience. Accessibility issues have made air travel difficult for many, even impossible for some. But new technologies allow better interaction with the cabin environment and its many devices than trying to push much to small and fiddly buttons.

“As capacitive touch screen technology makes further gains in aircraft interiors, the fastest growing and most lucrative market segment, Baby Boomers (1946-1964) are beginning to have age related usability needs (lower visual/auditory acuity, arthritis, etc,). By employing multiple forms of communication raises the odds that the intended message will be received,” B/E explains in its brief.

We’d like to see more cabin developments which address the needs of all passengers.

1) The Panasonic Avionics JAZZ high-tech economy seat is a clear winner.

JAZZ Economy Class Seat/Panasonic, B/E Aerospace, Formation Design Group, TEAGUE

Flying Economy can be unpleasant but In-Flight Entertainment and good seat design can go a long way towards making it better. (Again, psychologists say so). The JAZZ seat provides a quality In-Flight Entertainment experience and gives smart spots to store and power our gadgets. Having the seat suit the equipment (instead of forcing the tech into a seat) makes good design sense. As the developers explain:

“JAZZ Seat is the first seat with IFE designed synchronously from the ground up for commercial aircraft … featuring seamless and holistic integration of next generation, touch-screen IFE with a lightweight economy seat.”

JAZZ Economy Class Seat/Panasonic, B/E Aerospace, TEAGUE

It may not blow your mind like the Thales, B/E, BMW Business Class seat of tomorrow, which can virtually predict your thoughts–but it comes darned close. The JAZZ ticks all the boxes of passenger experience needs: comfort, convenience, functionality and smart technology. And it’s a seat many more of us are likely to enjoy. As a collaboration between B/E Aerospace and Panasonic, with Formation Design Group and TEAGUE design touches, this seat concept has a good chance of jetting off the drawing board into the clouds.

We can’t wait to see it fly.