Teague Works on a Design Fix to Cramped Middle Seats

Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of video interviews from the Skift Take Studio, presented by KDS, that were filmed at this year’s Skift Global Forum.

During the 2017 Skift Global Forum in September in New York City, we heard from a host of the travel industry’s top leaders from across every sector.

And after first speaking to them on stage in front of an audience of more than 1,100, we took another few minutes with them to get more insight in our backstage Skift Take Studio.

In our behind-the-scenes conversation, John Barratt, CEO of design consulting firm Teague, shared his thoughts about space tourism, overhead bin anxiety, and making the middle seat on planes more desirable.

"No one wants the middle seat; it's kind of a crappy experience today," he said. His fix: find a sponsor to add perks to the seat, such as an entertainment preview or a gift.

"The idea is to try to change this really crappy middle seat experience, partnering with other companies to create something a little bit more, a richer experience," he said. "It's again this notion of trying to remove friction from the system."

Barratt is also thinking a lot about the experience of space tourism, which he called "some of the most fascinating and compelling work that we're involved in right now."

"We have a large team focused on it doing some truly breakthrough thinking, and that's exciting for us," he said. "Because we're starting now to expand beyond how people are moving around the world to how people are going to be moving around the universe."

Watch all the Skift Take Studio videos here.