Squeezing every possible inch out of business class cabins is vital for airline economics, especially with the growing need to rely on retrofits to meet widebody demand within the industry. To meet this demand, a growing number of seat manufacturers are adapting their existing products — and developing entirely new ones — to enable them to optimise their offerings on an aircraft type-by-type basis.
Today’s business class passengers identify constricted footwells, knee-knocking pinchpoints, and a lack of elbow room as some of their top disappointments. Tomorrow’s travellers, more informed and with higher expectations than ever before, will be even less forgiving.
Those increasing expectations come in the context of widebody airplane cabins becoming more and more similar. The variety, number and structural shapes of widebody airliner types have all reduced substantially over the last decade.
As the final passenger A380s, A340s, 747s and 767s exited the final assembly lines, the number of different sizes and shapes of cabins — and seats, and suites — that the interiors industry needs to work with has shrunk as well. And that’s both a problem and an opportunity.
