Enhancing air travel experience

Citation

Howells, D. (2004), "Enhancing air travel experience", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 76 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2004.12776aaf.003

Enhancing air travel experience

Enhancing air travel experience

Keywords: QinetiQ, Aircraft, Design

QinetiQ is one of Europe's largest research organisations. It developed some of the 20th century's important technologies, including radar, liquid crystal displays, carbon fibre and infrared sensors.

Currently, the company is applying its intellectual resources and world-leading facilities to solve the problems of industries as diverse as aerospace, health, transport, telecommunications, human sciences and power generation. QinetiQ's headquarters at Farnborough has an undisputed claim to be a world centre of excellence for aeronautical research and development. It was at last year's Farnborough Air Show that QinetiQ revealed an exciting display – a new concept in aircraft cabin design that gave full reign to the company's capabilities in innovative design, applied science and technology. The display provided a showcase for QinetiQ's unique ability to bring together an impressive range of capabilities, which has the potential to offer a more complete cabin experience to future passengers.

Half a century back air travel was defined by the upper middle class standards of the time. Smartly dressed passengers lounged in what were often very elegant cabins. Indeed, depending on what airline one flew with, the aircraft interiors from the fifties and sixties sometimes enjoyed more than a passing relationship with well-heeled family living rooms, or even a five-star hotel. Immaculate stewards and stewardesses roamed the aisles and, for the privileged few, real China dinner plates and tent-sized serviettes were de rigeur. Passengers certainly enjoyed a splendid amount of legroom and ate their food from real tables, while looking out of curtained windows.

All this elegance might appear somewhat surreal and unnatural to the modern traveller, but quaint though yesteryear's standards may have been, air travel of the past does at least convey a strong sense of comfort and reassurance.

By contrast, air travel in the 21st century has become sleeker, more efficient. Most of us who fly regularly would have to agree that modern airlines are clever about the way they offer on-board services and amenities. The food is generally pretty good, seat headrests reveal discrete LCD screens (no more peering above the heads of the inevitable “tall man”, or the woman with bouffant hair) and there are usually five good films to choose from. Armrests conceal telephones and entertainment units while first class passengers enjoy fully reclining sleeper chairs and excellent food. Pay enough money and even the most obdurate complainer may soon forget the inevitable jolts and niggles of air travel in a haze of good food, roomy compartments and treats.

Air travel has certainly progressed and it is not just first class passengers who benefit from a combination of improved technology, competition and the “putting customers first” ethos.

However, before we get too comfortable with this impression of progress, let us explore the notion that many modern cabin environments sometimes offer little more than an attenuation of passengers' discomfort. Remove the technology, the “treat” diversions and the service padding and what is durable, what is left that is of real value? Perhaps the rudiments of true comfort – good quality lighting and space need to be given greater emphasis.

At QinetiQ, we believe that an enhanced passenger experience will emerge from a deeper understanding of basic human requirements which are then interpreted, built upon and evolved through a combination of world-class, innovative technology and a standard of perceptive design that is more sympathetic to human needs.

At last year's Farnborough Air Show, QinetiQ set out to challenge the way in which aircraft interiors are designed with a display that presented a radically new perspective on applied technology, while exploring the attendant relationship with airline customer service. We revealed a very different kind of cabin design to the type of traditional aircraft interior familiar to today's air travellers. The display was strikingly minimal, featuring low profile seats and intelligent lighting that adapted to the changing needs of passengers during their flight.

The seating in QinetiQ's design not only optimised cabin space without compromising comfort, but also used sensing technology to monitor passengers' behaviour. “Sensing seats” could, for example, be used to help hard working, but often distracted cabin staff anticipate the needs of more restive individuals, who may need to exercise their limbs, or detect passengers displaying disruptive behaviour, who may need to exercise restraint. Air rage is still a serious issue for many airlines, as are concerns about international terrorism and health issues.

Senior QinetiQ Product Designer Chris Thorpe helped drive the development of the Farnborough Air Show display. He believes that many of today's passengers value calm, welcoming environments and may soon begin to make their airline choice-based upon these qualities. Indeed, there is growing evidence that passengers are negatively affected by today's aircraft interiors. For example, participants in a recent University of Washington study did cite other passengers taking up part of their personal space on a plane as a source of overall stress. “To the extent cramped cabins contributed to stress factors,” writes the author Jonathan Brickerl 2002, “then making cabins more spacious could potentially ameliorate air travel stress”.

This study might be somewhat alarming for airlines, but it does at least present an exciting opportunity for those companies that challenge today's unspoken orthodoxy that all aircraft cabin interiors must look alike. The unifying principle for some airline operators in the future, therefore, will be the need to offer a strongly differentiated service by delivering excellence in interior design, incorporated with innovative technology such as QinetiQ's sensing seats.

QinetiQ's philosophy is defined by the ability to offer a truly enhanced passenger experience based on the importance of creating what we characterise as, “real-time, adaptive environments”. A real-time adaptive environment might also be described as a “micro environment”, a world-within-a-world which adapts to meet individuals' needs and moods during a flight, providing tailored services to every passenger while treating them as individuals by respecting their culture and language. It is about technology enabling airlines to differentiate their services and meet each customer's needs.

For example, if one revisits the concept of intelligent seat systems, such “intelligence” would enable seats to track a passenger's movements in real-time and conceivably operate an entire intelligent network that adapts environments to meet the individual needs. Lighting, air-conditioning, sound systems and even language could become malleable in this environment, anticipating lighting, seat angle, air quality and sound system requirements.

And there are many examples of other exciting applications to consider. For example, a passenger equipped with a smartcard loaded with his personal data might then “communicate” with an intelligent seat system. The passenger's personal data (his most recent travel information, his language and even his news and entertainment preferences) could be communicated through to his on-board seating space. Lighting, seat adjustment and sound systems could then be managed automatically to meet our future passenger's needs.

At QinetiQ, we are not constrained by a single approach. We are also working on, and have solutions for, some of the old flying bugbears like the endless drone and vibration noises that assail passengers on every flight. QinetiQ is developing broadband active noise suppression systems that help deaden aircraft interior noise.

Similarly, we are developing cabin air control and filtration systems to help eradicate the inevitable aircraft odours – the outgasing of plastics, for example – which pervade most aircraft. Through our Centre for Human Sciences (CHS), we also possess invaluable human sciences capability, which can provide research into areas such as sleep. For example, in a recent survey, QinetiQ has shown that two- thirds of the population feel the need for a nap during the day and that many manage to sleep, no matter where they are. CHS can also advise on a range of issues key to passenger comfort. From the disruptive effects of noise and light on sleepers, to sleep quality in different seat positions, from strategies to aid adaptation to new time zones, to menu advice designed to meet individual traveller requirements (from “sleepy suppers” to power breakfasts'). QinetiQ's background in human science will influence and strengthen our approach to cabin interior design and technology.

Looking to the future, aircraft designers are now beginning to break with conventional design. These future aircraft will fly faster and they will be lighter, seeker than ever before. But what of the passenger experience within these new aircraft?

BA recently broke the mould when they installed business seats that faced each other. By all accounts they have been well received by BA's customers. Looking further into the future we may find airlines completely departing from convention by, for example, building aircraft without windows. Such manufacturers may replace windows with screens which, attached to cameras mounted on the airframe itself, would allow passengers to select when they view the outside world and what view they see. Removing windows might reduce drag and improve fuel consumption, but the psychological effects on passengers are uncertain.

The challenge for airlines is to maintain a balance between the maximising service levels while meeting customer expectations and offering lower fares. The forces of new, intelligent technology, combined the urgent need to drive confidence and profit back into airline operations, means that no one can afford to stand still.

Evolution is on the march and the next generation of aircraft will look very different inside and out. It is at this juncture that QinetiQ, with its privileged position at the centre of the aerospace community, and unique knowledge in areas such as human sciences, can add very great value to the process of change.

There is little point in becoming too prescriptive, or too specific about what might be achieved as each airline and each manufacturer will rightly wish to make an individual statement through their own combinations of technology and design. And certainly, each airline will also need to go through many thought processes, tests and trials before deciding on their own expression of an enhanced passenger experience. It is a combination of technical capability and scientific research, innovative design and knowledge of human factors, coupled with extensive experience in the aerospace industry, which informs QinetiQ's approach. And this in turn is proving attractive to a number of very key players in the airline industry. My own personal dream is of future passengers really enjoying their flight, in a way that people back in the 1950s could not even begin to dream of.

David HowellsQinetiQ Project Leader

ReferenceBricker, J.B. (2002), “Comparison of air travel stress before and after 11 September 2001”, Presented at the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, Annual Conference, Austin, Texas.