Gulliver | Pie in the sky

The problem with "concept" airlines

Much was made in the media last week of Poppi, a concept airline developed by Teague, a Seattle-based design consultancy. Teague wanted to imagine how airlines of the future might behave to enhance profits and the flying experience.

By J.C.C

MUCH was made in the media last week of Poppi (pictured), a concept airline developed by Teague, a Seattle-based design consultancy. Teague wanted to imagine how airlines of the future might behave to enhance profits and the flying experience.

Design and technology firms are forever “re-imagining” passenger planes. It is, after all, easy pickings. Everyone can relate to the hell that is current air travel. Coming up with ideas to make it more pleasurable is simple. Particularly if you do not have to worry whether the carrier can also make money once it has benefitted from all that blue-sky thinking.

The concepts that pop out of the brains of design consultants often fall into three categories. First is the Big Idea Solution. These are usually identifiable by the fact that there is a small solution around that works better. Poppi, for example, introduces a "cinema class", in which people can pay extra to watch films together on a big screen, in a cabin configured like a movie theatre. Forget that for many this will just hark back to the days of drop-down screens on flights of old. Long-haul flights already provide screens to allow passengers to choose what to watch and many bring tablets loaded with their own films anyway. A more immersive experience might be to lease virtual reality headsets to passengers, a practice tried by Qantas earlier this year.

Second there is the solution to a non-problem. Poppi suggests a “click class”. This is a business-class seat with a hole in it; frequent flyers must buy a special carry-on case that clicks into it. This provides “grab and go convenience”, it says. Some might wonder why they can't just continue to use the luggage they already own. Poppi’s other solution to the non-problem of carry-ons is to do away with them altogether, instead checking them all into the hold “with RFID-enabled tags to assure passengers that their bags are where they’re supposed to be”. Forcing more passengers to check-in bags would just add time at both ends of the journey.

Finally, designers of concept airlines are keen on the Vague Solution That Sounds Nice. As we all hate the middle seats, Teague says, why not have a firm sponsor them? (Or rather, as this is an idea dreamed up by a consultancy, “a brand touch point within a brand touch point”.) These can bring “something special” to middle-seat passengers. In the mock-up, the centre chair is sponsored by UniQlo, so perhaps it means you will get some nice socks. But if it really is such a bind sitting between other people, why not just offer a discount? Or, more realistically, re-class the aisle and window seats as premium.

Probably I am being overly cynical. Many good ideas have acted as positive disruptive forces for airlines. And underpinning all of this is a valid point. Airlines have long needed to find new sources of revenue in the face of competition from budget carriers. Industry types often suggest that more segmentation in the cabin—seating for families maybe, or more scales of economy-seating—is a good way to do this. But for every good idea there are a dozen bad ones. (Who can forget Ryanair's abortive attempt to charge for toilet usage?) For the average passenger service is important. But it is nowhere near as critical as price. When it comes down to it, we will put up with any hardship if it makes a flight cheaper. This writer once asked an airline executive for his thoughts on Emirates’ decision to add business-class bars to flights. The response was “I'd rip the bar out and add another few rows of seats.”

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