All In The Details

Qantas plays a long game with its inflight product

The Red Roo is renowned for its inflight product, particularly in business class, which it lays claim to having invented. (Former JSA partner British Airways disagrees. ) At times, the lead time required can be problematic: witness the variety of product introduced on transcontinental flights during the period when the Business Suite was in development, which ranged from 737-style recliners with an odd table in the middle seat, through to Skybed Mark II angled lie-flat seats and Skybed Mark III fully flat beds.

Yet with its new seat, manufactured by Northern Ireland-based Thompson Aero Seating, Qantas has hit a firm six. Deep inside Qantas’s Centre of Service Excellence, hidden in an unmarked facility near Sydney Airport, Capps explained how his wide remit gave him a particularly effective insight into the context in which the new seat would need to operate.

“Essentially, my role is to look after any changes to the customer journey, from the time the customer checks in to the time they collect their baggage,” said Capps, who was instrumental to the selection, design and production of the seat.

What does his role entail in particular? “Anything from airport design and configuration through security and check-in; lounge strategy, development and build; boarding; aircraft configuration; service strategy for international; food and beverage for international; and onboard entertainment strategy. All the things you get as a customer. ” Capps has been in various iterations of the role for about five years, and with Qantas for just under 19. During that time, he has seen the airline’s Skybed product come and go – including on many of the A330-200 and -300 aircraft on which the Business Suite is now being installed. We started off talking about the decision to upgrade the B/E Aerospace-manufactured Skybed Mark II and the context for its replacement.

“The Skybed Mark II was the version of Skybed that we put on the A330 aircraft when they first started flying for Qantas. It really was the same as the original 747 aircraft, but just translated across to the Airbus airframe,” Capps said, with “some very slight adjustments in the seat width to be able to fit in on the seat tracks on that aircraft type, and a couple of changes to the rest of the structure. But by and large it was the Airbus version of the 747 Skybed. ” Capps explained that the breadth of product on Qantas’s A330s made it clear a replacement was required.

“We have the A330 across both international and domestic, with ten of the aircraft (the -300 series) on international routes predominantly, up into Asia. Eighteen of the aircraft operate domestically. In the international arena, we’re obviously seeing a lot of competition coming in from Asia on the routes that we serve. Skybed has served particularly well on our A330s, but that had been around for a little while and we thought it was time to refresh. ” That refresh required an impressive amount of planning, given the airline’s fleet streamlining and the variety of products on the Airbus A330-200 and -300 aircraft the airline (and its low-cost subsidiary Jetstar) were already flying.

“Two things are incredibly important: one of those is direct aisle access for every passenger on board, and the other is a fully flat bed. Those things we knew we needed to invest in, in order to sustain our leading competitive position on the international front, and on the domestic front our fleet composition across the group has changed quite a lot. We have inherited a number of A330-200s from Jetstar, plus we already had a number of versions of A330-200s flying for domestic, so we needed to create a consistent domestic fleet, and we also wanted to make sure that these aircraft – which are flying predominantly east-west routes – are set up with a product level that is consistent for a 4-5 hour duration of flight. ” The product level is determined by two things, Capps said.

“One is fleet economics, where we needed an aircraft seat that gave us the right level of density to make that product sustainable. The second is that we know from a lot of market research – talking directly to our

The most spatially efficient seat was also the most comfortable.

customers whether leisure purpose or business purpose – that when they’re flying on overnight flights, direct access to an aisle is of critical importance. So we needed a seat that had a good configuration and efficiency, but also one that could go fully flat and provide the direct aisle access.

“Both of those needs pointed to a fairly consistent product: a fully flat suite in business class, refreshed or new seats in economy class, and an upgrade to the inflight entertainment system. They were the drivers: competitiveness and fleet consistency. ” With a plethora of business class seats available, and the budget – and big-name designer in Marc Newson – to be selective, Qantas looked at “pretty much everything that was on the market,” Capps said. “We had a look at what our key competitors were flying and benchmarked that. We had a look at that in terms of bed length, seat width, seat pitch, weight, cost, serviceability and operational performance, customer feedback – and across all of those different attributes there wasn’t a specific seat that met the needs of Qantas on the medium-haul, Asia day and night sectors. That’s why we ended up talking with Thompson Aero Seating, and worked with them really to build a Qantas version of the seat, that met all of those requirements and was optimised for Qantas’s network and customers. ” Thompson “had the core seat structure and manufactured it,” Capps said. “Design was really tripartite: Qantas, taking all the learnings we had from all our successful seat programs before, the latest of which was the A380; Marc Newson, who designed the seat from an industrial design perspective for us, as he had the previous Skybed; and Thompson, who provided a lot of the engineering assistance behind it. Working together across all those three parties is what developed the seat as it is. ” And that seat is impressive, well ahead of Qantas’s existing products. Yet airline economics is as important in business class as is the passenger experience, so the airline was keen to ensure that the product looked good, felt good, and was good for the bottom line of its previously troubled International division.

The new seat, Capps explained, has “actually slightly better density than we would get in a 2-2-2 configuration with a fully flat bed. The reason for that is we have a 1-2-1 arrangement, which means we can have single seats in the outboard locations. Having a single seat outboard at the front of the cabin means you can adapt fairly closely around the door environment, which means you can push right up to the maximum envelope of the cabin. slightly greater efficiency than we would have with a similar seat to, say, some of our competitors with a 2-2-2 configuration. It happened that the most spatially efficient seat was also the most comfortable and the most competitive for us. ” There’s a lot of that competition these days, with carriers from across Asia seeking to increase their foothold in the Australian market with big budgets, much lower cost bases and modern hub operations.

Qantas benchmarked “all of the key premium carriers that are flying into Australia, from Singapore, from Hong Kong, from mainland China, from Indonesia. We also operate this aircraft in this configuration to Honolulu, so there are US carriers that we benchmark against. In Australia you can imagine who our key competitor is,” Capps laughs.

“We benchmarked against all of those to make sure that not only did we compete well against them, but that we were able to compete for Qantas’s customers and their needs, who are a little bit different to our competitors’. That’s what gave us the specification we arrived with. ”

Staggered or herringbone: the great 2010s business class debate

“We really liked the fact that being fully forward-facing means that we are in a position to offer constant seat and bed length all the way down the structure. When we see other herringbone style seats and angled seats, they can give quite a wide bed at a particular level, right around the hip, but they taper quite considerably as you get down towards the toe, and also at the head,” Capps argued.

There is a fair amount of merit, of course, to the counterargument that herringbone seats provide a consistent experience between rows (no window vs aisle situation, essentially) and that human beings also taper quite considerably between shoulder and feet. Herringbone products, particularly outward-facing ones like Zodiac’s Cirrus seat (like the current Cathay Pacific product) or B/E Aerospace’s Super Diamond (like Qatar Airways’ latest seats) have certainly been popular with many passengers, arguably more so than staggered products.

For Capps’ part, however, he was clear that “we know that for our customers, particularly on night sectors, the ability to sleep on your side or on your back and turn over quite comfortably is quite important. To do that means you need to have a forward-facing seat, because they’re the only kinds of seats that give you fairly constant width from head to toe. ” The Vantage family of products isn’t the only one with that cabin profile. Airbus subsidiary Stelia, formerly Sogerma, has long produced its Solstys product, which was larger than the original Vantage and arrayed in a 1-2-1 layout across fuselages from the Airbus A330 upwards.

Did Qantas talk to Stelia as part of the work around the Business Suite? “We didn’t. In terms of the timing of the decision and the timeframes that we had for that particular program, it wasn’t a seat we were able to consider. But we looked at seats that were similar in nature, and Vantage XL is the one that really fit all of our needs. A particular advantage of Thompson’s product is not only the really strong engineering and operational performance, but also its weight. It offers a really attractive weight proposition for us. ” How much less? “It’s really difficult to put a direct comparison, because the product is quite different and so we don’t do direct apples-to-apples costing. But where we compare the Thompson Vantage XL with other off-the-shelf versions of business class suites, we found that it was generally greater than ten percent lighter than some of its competitors. ” Qantas did look into the standard Vantage product, which is generally installed in a staggered 1-2-1, 2-2-1 layout on the A330 cross-section, meaning that two of the nine seats face the “midnight clamber” problem, where the window passenger has to spring nimbly (or, more often, climb ponderously) over an aisle passenger when in bed mode.

So did the two seats without direct aisle access really play into the considerations? “Yes, they did,” Capps said up front. “We thought if we were investing in something that was a flat bed, and wanted to be market leading, we also had to offer direct aisle access for everyone. The earlier versions of Vantage meant that a greater percentage of our customers wouldn’t have direct aisle access – and also a narrower seat. We know that both those things, seat and bed width and the access to aisles, are very important to our customers. ” Seat production capacity and delivery performance “was a key decision for us,” Capps noted. “One of our criteria was operational performance, and part of operational performance is certification. When we’re looking at reconfiguring up to twenty eight aircraft in quite a dense nose-to-tail reconfiguration sequence, we can’t afford to have any delays. ” When reconfiguring an aircraft, Capps explained, “there are multiple commodities: business seats, economy seats, IFE systems, aircraft furniture – unless we were 100 per cent confident that each of those commodities were on the block when we need them, it would really compromise the whole rollout. Given that many aircraft, we want to make sure that we’re able to deliver what we promised. ”

Qantas is still coy on where the Business Suite is headed next

Once the A330-200 and -300 fleet is refurbished, of course, the immediate question is where Qantas will next be installing the Business Suite.

“We are considering versions of that product for future fleet types that we’re investing in,” Capps said. “The 787-9 is obviously an aircraft that Qantas has announced, but we haven’t announced any details of the product on that. What we can say is that this product performs extremely well. The key attributes that we see on the A330 Business Suite are attributes that we would like to play out on future fleet types. ” The similar cross-section on the A380 upper deck to that of the A330 would appear to be a significant bonus to Qantas in terms of product consistency and read-across between aircraft.

“That’s always a consideration for us,” Capps confirmed, “but really we made the decision for the business suite on this aircraft in the context of the A330. It’s obviously favourable that it could be an option for A380 for us in the future, but really this was about the A330. ” Inside the A330 cabin, “the bed length is consistent,” Capps said. “We have a slight difference in pitch between the A330-200 and the -300, but that’s more the length of the A zone in the aircraft. Across the airframe, the bed length goes between 78 on the A330-200 to 80 inches on the A330-300. ”

A highly customised seat is unmis-takably Qantas’s design language

The seat is certified for a slight yet noticeable recline during takeoff and landing, with the A330-300 product permitted to recline to 25°, four degrees more than the -200 product. Another difference: the seat cover of the -300 product is a deep charcoal It’s a big balancing act between comfort and amenity, storage, width and length. fabric, while the -200’s is a soft black leather.

“On the domestic aircraft it’s about 75 per cent daylight flying, and generally it’s a little bit more comfortable in an upright position to go with leather. On the international aircraft, because at least 50 percent of its flying is night-time, we find the fabric seat gives a little bit better contouring around the back in particular,” Capps explained.

“We’ve got a lot more bolstering on these seats than we did on previous aircraft. We worked with an ergonomist on the seat cushion design, and also the seat recline design for this aircraft – not only on the types of foam, take the seat pan compared with the bullnose, but also for the level of contouring we have around the back. ” For seats immediately next to the aisle, an armrest that retracts downwards helps the airline meet requirements that 50 per cent or more of seats meet regulators’ accessibility requirements for disabled passengers, and also provides a feeling of extra width. “For the seats that don’t have the benefit of the dropping arm, we give them as much seat width as we can. “The seats that are fully enclosed – that don’t have an aisle armrest – are fixed at 25in wide. The other seats, which have a dropping arm, are 24in in seat mode, but that goes to 26in in bed mode,” Capps explains.

Qantas’s improvements make the seat significantly better

In terms of bed mode, a key criticism of the original Vantage seat was the sleeping arrangement, and particularly the footwell area, which can feel cramped for tall passengers, those with large feet, or people who sleep on their side. It’s the result of a tradeoff between table size and location: with the table sliding out horizontally from within the side console, the 3-6 centimetres that makes up the table mechanism and housing comes from the amount of foot space available.

Qantas chose to keep the side-sliding table within the console where other airlines moved it to a horizontal swing-down mechanism from the side partition, but Capps noted that his team reacted to traveller feedback to improve the passenger experience.

“We found that the less structure we could build into the upright partitions, the more storage space we could give to customers. That would add a lot of structure to the partition. It’s important to provide customers as much flexibility as possible,” Capps explained, sliding the sculpted table out in its arc from the console.

“We wanted something that would tilt away, move forward and aft, be a fairly substantial size, and be contoured around the customer’s bodyform. To have all that functionality on just a fixed folding tray table is quite hard, so that’s why we rebuilt the whole tray table itself with Thompson. There’s Qantas intellectual property in a lot of that. ” Echoing a lot of work that Cathay Pacific did with its landmark implementation of Zodiac’s Cirrus outward-facing herringbone seat, Qantas and Thompson took pains to remove seating structure at key passenger experience pinch points during the design process. The knee-level storage area – suitable for shoes, large bottles of water, and so on – doubles up as a void to avoid knees striking the plastic when in bed mode, for example.

“Our customers like as much space as they can. When you’re half asleep and trying to turn over at night, you don’t want to be knocking into structure and wake yourself up.

It’s a big balancing act between comfort and amenity, storage, width and length.

We believe we’ve struck the right balance between all of those attributes. It’s about the little things in this seat that we spent a lot of time thinking about to make sure it performed well. ” One of those ‘little things’ includes defensive design to prevent passengers’ personal electronic devices dropping into the seat mechanism and being crushed. The lithium-ion batteries that phones, tablets and so on use have proven to be fire hazards when moved, with numerous airlines including Air France (whose last-generation angled lie-flat business class was particularly prone to the problem) now advising passengers not to move their seat if a device slips through the gap.

“We were really keen to make sure we were contouring the headrest as much as possible around the shape of the back shell,” Capps explained. “That minimises any drop-out spaces, but underneath the seat we’ve got little nets and everything built in there, so if things drop they’re easy to reach around the cushion to get, rather than having to put your hand deep into the seat structure, which obviously we don’t want to have to do. Minimising the amount of gaps anywhere in the seat was very important to us. ” Other details that make for a seat greater than the sum of its parts include the choice of materials, which range from a blond wood surface through premium surfaces, advanced plastic mouldings, metal components for strength and support, electronic do-not-disturb signs and more – all the way down to a small notch that serves as a coat hook, replacing the push-in version on the Skybed.

It’s this attention to detail that provides the lasting impression of the Business Suite and of Qantas’s entire approach to it: an efficient product that provides the services the airline’s passengers have told it that they want, designed carefully to be a delight to use. Phil Capps’ belief that passengers prefer forward-facing staggered seats than to be angled towards the window at the outboard or each other in the centre hasn’t previously been borne out by real-world implementations of the staggered product. Will the dozens of improvements and significant design work Qantas has put into its Business Suite overcome the perceptions, as Capps told Australian Aviation its frequent flyers hope? As that question is answered, a wider one will be as well: whether the Business Suite – in the context of the entire Qantas package – will prove more or less popular than the Virgin Australia reverse herringbone B/E Super Diamond seat and the Virgin Australia package.