Breaking the mould

However, aviation records of another type are now being set on the other side of the Pacific as Air New Zealand unveils the most dramatic change in cabin layout since the advent of the 747 which will certainly – and finally – deliver “the right stuff” to passengers.

And in the style of Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works Air New Zealand’s industry leading innovation has been hatched from a disused warehouse in down town Auckland.

From the outside, the building is hardly worth a second glance but looks are deceiving, however, because inside this building Air New Zealand is rewriting the book on passenger accommodations.

And what happens here likely will influence cabin design around the world no less than
did the first lie-flat seat-bed more than a decade ago: Economy seats that convert
into couches, premium economy seats that are more at home in a wine bar, a further refinement of the airline’s award-winning fully flat seat-beds, galleys at every door, wine-tasting sessions for economy passengers.

“We’ve reinvented everything we do and given choice and control back to the
passenger,” beams Group GM-International Airlines Ed Sims.

Air New Zealand has gone to extraordinary and unprecedented lengths to reinvent not only itself but the air travel experience, leaving rivals to try to catch up.

Its effort, revealed exclusively to Australian Aviation and Air Transport World in October last year, will be introduced on its first 777-300ER to be delivered in November and resulted in the airline being honoured as Air Transport World’s Airline of the Year for 2010.

The journey

Three years ago when Air New Zealand took delivery of its final 777-200ER, executives acknowledged that although they had somewhat challenged themselves with a few new concepts, they had not really reinvented anything.

Sims explains that the executive team realized more could be done and was not happy just to be leaders by being first to take off-the shelf products. “We wanted to challenge everything,” he asserts.

So the airline created a project team code-named Kupe (according to Maori legend, Kupe was the first Polynesian to reach New Zealand).

But, he says, while it had the best people for execution, “we were perhaps not the best at challenging accepted industry wisdom.”

Enter IDEO, the Palo Alto, California-based design team that has excelled at confronting conventional thinking as it became one of the top 10 innovative global think tanks.

“One of their designers came down in 2006 to talk to us about design thinking and she was very impressive,” Sims explains.

“We wanted a creative agency to really challenge our own creative talent and we evaluated three, but IDEO was a standout and was engaged in early 2007.”

The company worked with Air New Zealand for 9 months, looking at every aspect of the airline’s cabins and interviewing passengers, flight attendants and thought leaders to get the widest possible viewpoints.

“They took a 360-degree view of our operations and told us we hadn’t reinvented anything,” he says.

As part of the process, the two companies made detailed studies of passengers to understand their needs and wants in order to work out solutions for seating and service.

IDEO concluded that Air New Zealand had made the best of what was available but had not released passengers from the sense that their seat was the only space they controlled.

“They reminded us that with the world’s longest hauls, we had a greater obligation than any other airline to give passengers more,” Sims says.

“We were in danger of benchmarking ourselves against competitors and just tweaking around the edges.”

Reinvention

IDEO was asking difficult questions such as why do all seats look the same and why can’t you choose when you want to be sociable? The list was endless, he quips, and the next stage was to bring together a wider group of mixed talents from the design firm and Air New Zealand to start trying to turn dreams into reality.

“It was liberating getting on the floor with cardboard, polystyrene and paper cutting out seat concepts,” Sims
muses.

“We spent days brainstorming everything you can imagine and some things you can’t. There were about 30 concepts, and questions abounded.”

By late 2007 the Kupe team had outgrown its office at corporate headquarters and moved into the nondescript building down the road.

Ironically, the block was adorned with billboards touting the virtues of flying Virgin Blue and later Jetstar Airways.

“The concepts were driven at the time by the 787-9 and we received Boeing’s approval to build an exact replica of the 787 cabin, which is the only one outside Seattle,” Sims tells this Australian Aviation.

“Our design studio was broken down into two sections, one the 787 fuselage and the balance of the area the innovation center.”

Over the next six months, work began in earnest on designs that delivered to the customer needs, looking at size and shape from practical, technical and commercially viable standpoints to the point where the team was constructing metal shapes and seating materials. With the early concepts getting board approval to move forward, the stage was set for the next step of the brainstorming.

“We wanted to engage seat and industrial designers who have had nothing to do with airline seating but are experts with years of experience around comfort and ergonomic issues,” Sims explains.

Air New Zealand took a novel approach: “We wanted four companies to pitch, but all together. All agreed and critiqued each others’ work and borrowed from each other, and we were able to select down from 19 new designs to five layout concepts.”

Air New Zealand then built up the different configurations in the 787 cabin mock-up and employed actors to sit through a series of 2-3 hour “flights” complete with engine noise, full cabin service and even children.

“The actors had to stay in character representing a traveler type for the duration of the flights and the results were startling when compared to existing industry seating. Some concepts died a natural death while others that had been initially put on the back burner came to life.”

A number of the concepts shown to Australian Aviation are still secret and may be rolled out at a later date.

Out of the process, the airline arrived at a totally new concept for economy and premium economy, while its existing business premier herringbone concept (licensed from Virgin Atlantic Airways) was found to be the best available from the standpoint of space and value although it came in for a number of tweaks.

The new economy product centers on taking 22 triple seats in the forward economy zone and adding a swing-up, fully padded section that turns a set of three seats into a couch. Single passengers can buy all three seats at a price working out to a little more than a premium economy seat.

At the same time, to meet the demand for lower and lower economy fares and competition from emerging long-haul low-cost airlines, such as AirAsia X, Air New Zealand adopted a 3-4-3 layout for its 777-300ERs.

However, to ensure maximum physical and perceived space, it narrowed the aisles with the result that seat width is in fact fractionally greater than on its 747-400s. Critically, economy passengers also get 33-inch seat pitch—up to 2 inches more than competitor Qantas offers on its A380s.

The new economy product complements Air New Zealand’s current sale of vacant economy seats at deeply discounted rates on check-in, which has proved extremely popular.

Its 777-300ERs will have 246 economy seats with each featuring a fully retractable armrest, foot net, cup holder, trinket tray for glasses, enhanced winged headrest combined with an innovative sleep pillow that slips on, PC power and USB ports and IPod connection.

Recaro, which is building the seats, is enthusiastic about the new concept and the seats will be available to other airlines under license from Air New Zealand.

Upgrading economy

The new premium economy product is the first major revamp of a class that had its origins with British Caledonian’s use of the upper deck of its 747s in the 1980s.

Air New Zealand settled on sets of two seats that are designed with flexibility for couples to eat or just nestle together by simply raising or lowering dividing padded cushions.

While offering the option of conversation and sharing, the seats also are cleverly angled to give privacy. They recline within the shell so no passengers will have seats being lowered into their space, and a foot pouf is provided so they can select their own position for sleeping.

The airline will configure the seats on its 777-300ERs and 787s in a 2-2-2 layout set 36 inches apart, but the clever angling provides even more legroom.

Contour, based in Wales, will build the premium economy seat, which also will be made available to other carriers under license.

The new seat concepts are a departure from Boeing’s –and Airbus’s – insistence in restricting economy customer options on aircraft to streamline production, but the manufacture has embraced them and is interested in adapting them as standard offerings.

Air New Zealand has added considerable padding to its business premier lie-flat seat-beds and after working with bedding experts claims to have the best bed in the sky for business class passengers.

Enhancing Service

The airline also is revamping its service delivery. Options and control will abound as it implements research conducted by its own teams and IDEO.

At the heart of the makeover is returning control to passengers, giving them options such as the ability of an economy passenger to buy a glass or two of the pinot noir or champagne on the business premier menu via the enhanced IFE system.

“The central premise is that people feel trapped, eat when we want them to and trapped by meal trays to be collected when we want to,” says Sims.

To eliminate the meal tray trap, which can last for hours, the carrier will deliver the meal in two stages, with appetizer and enhanced main selections followed separately, and later, by dessert, biscuits and cheese.

The service enhancements are built around both a new generation IFE and five large galleys.

In an airline first, Air New Zealand has designed its own interactive products using the Panasonic eX2 system as a platform and they include such things as virtual concierge, flight planner, and food and beverage ordering between meals.

Sims explains that while the in-seat ordering and greater flexibility of eating will create demands on flight attendants, the re-positioned galleys closer to passengers will eliminate the need to respond to call buttons and thereby improve the service efficiency.

However, he concedes there will be a settling-in period.

In premium economy, Air New Zealand is rolling out a welcome signature cocktail and antipasto on boarding.

Dinner can be shared and can be a traditional fare or tapas or even a gourmet burger. “This product is all about grazing and ordering when you like,” he notes.

A new feature is two 23-in. monitors at Galley Five in economy and at Door Two for premium passengers, which gives the perfect platform to host passengers for a wine tasting or a destination seminar.

Sims reflects with a broad smile on the three years of around-the-clock work and claims: “We are giving passengers choice, we are giving them control and we are giving them the best value product in the sky.”

It is certainly a bold claim but justified and the cabin makeover is quite possibly the most dramatic since the introduction of the 747 in 1970. If the 747 introduced the “space age” then Air New Zealand has introduced the “age of choice.”

For today’s passengers, who demand lower and lower fares and more and more comfort, Air New Zealand would appear to be setting new benchmarks and offering plenty of “the right stuff”.

SideBar

Flying with “the Simpsons” As part of the design process, Air New Zealand and IDEO studied passenger types to better understand demands and thus work out the best seating and service solutions.

Using the characters from one of TV’s most famous comedies, “The Simpsons,” as tags, the airline labelled its biggest group—Socialites—Bart Simpsons. “They are social but needy and make up 29% of our passengers,” says Group GM-International Airlines Ed Sims.

“Typically they can’t entertain themselves so need external stimulation and direction and are looking for the airline and the experience to entertain them.”

Mr. Burns is the name given to the group, Territorialists, at the other end of the spectrum. This group, which makes up 26% of passengers, wants their own piece of the aircraft and to be left alone.

“They claim their territory and form a close relationship with their space,” notes Sims. “While they are highly involved in the flight, it is on a selfish basis—it’s about them.” Many frequent flyers fall into this category.

The most challenging group to emerge from the studies was the Disengaged Jaded Flyers or Mo the Bartenders, who are very hard to please and just want to get from A to B. He says for these flyers it’s “just a bus trip.” Typically they do not like flying and are not interested in any frills because they will not be swayed. “They are very hard to please and are close to the next group, Cocooners, but differ in their complete lack of enthusiasm,” he laments.

Lisa Simpsons, or Cocooners, feel that the flight is a necessary part of the trip but not the trip itself. “They just want to zone out and get there and want to entertain themselves,” Sims observes.

This group, which makes up 17% of passengers, is not highly involved in the flight and prefers a quiet cabin away from families.

The smallest group at 10% were the Positivists or Marge Simpsons, who plan and organize. The airline found that they are typically fidgety and excited and the flight is part of the holiday and they want the fun to start immediately when they board. “They want engagement with everything and they love the romance of travel,” he says.