The New Aircraft Design That Could Solve Boarding Nightmares
Photo Caption: Rendering of CIGAR center boarding. Ugur Ipek Design
Skift Take
We need more tomorrow thinking like this if the passenger experience is really going to improve in the coming decades. But no one wants to build a new aircraft around a CIGAR just now.
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Boarding aircraft is probably one of the most tedious and stressful parts of air travel, but transport designer, Urgur Ipek, of Ugur Ipek Design, Germany, believes it’s all due to the impractical shape of cabin interiors.
Instead of the traditional uniform cylinder, he proposes that boarding would be much simpler on a cigar.
Ipek’s CIGAR is a modular concept which considers the boarding process in the cabin layout. Featuring an “anti-blocking aisle,” the cigar has passengers board from the center of the plane, where the aircraft aisle would be wide enough for airlines to place a welcome lounge. The aircraft aisles taper down as they near either extreme of the plane, towards the tail and the cockpit.
By tapering the aisles in this fashion, Ipek points out, aircraft manufacturers and cabin designers would leave room for everyone se
